At this time of year I like to look back over the past 365 days and pick out the stories that really got my attention. Now if you have something that you think that should be on this list, leave a comment with your thoughts. Now on to the top stories of the year:
#DeleteFacebook: The number one story of the year has to be Facebook. Whether we’re talking about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, other data leakage issues that Facebook disclosed, or the info that Facebook collected on everyone so that they could monetize it, or Facebook becoming very shifty in terms of taking responsibility anything, this is the story that everyone was talking about. And people talked about getting Facebook out of their lives as the company has pretty much proved that they cannot be trusted. Which is something that I do not believe will go away in 2019 as Facebook is in deep trouble with no clear path to rescue themselves.
The Fall Of Apple: Apple briefly was a trillion dollar company this year. The high points for Apple end there. #BatteryGate carried over from last year, as did their poor software quality which at Christmas was highlighted by iOS 12.1.2 which created issues for cellular data for iPhone users far and wide. Not to mention that a watchOS update bricked a ton of Apple Watches and #KeyboardGate. To add to the low points comes #BendGate 2.0 which involves Apples brand new iPad Pro arriving to customers bent, which somehow according to Apple is “normal”, and Apple deciding to no longer report how many iPhones they sell in a given quarter which implies that we’ve reached peak iPhone sales and the only direction that they will go is down. Something that is clearly highlighted by the fact that Apple for the first time ever is offering incentives for you to buy the iPhone XR. Something that they might not have had to do if they did’t price the things so high. Clearly Apple is a company in deep trouble with issues that likely have Steve Jobs spinning in his grave. Barring some miracle, I see no change in that in 2019.
Rogers On The Back Foot…. Again: Canada’s largest telco was caught out this year again this year on multiple fronts. Let’s start with their problems with the Apple Watch which continued into 2018. Sure they ultimately got support for Apple’s wearable device by September of this year, but only for consumers. Business customers need not apply. Then they muddied the message when Apple announced that they supported the eSIM standard in the new iPhones that came out this year, but Rogers didn’t know anything about that. But what may be a long term issue for Rogers is the fact that their Internet offerings pale in comparison with what Bell Canada offers. And Rogers has no clear path to catch up to Bell. I think it’s safe to say that 2019 is going to be a very difficult year for Rogers as they seem not to be able to get their act together.
Bell Canada Not Helping Their Own Cause: It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Bell. Sure they were aggressively expanding their fibre footprint to make Rogers life miserable. But unfortunately for them, they got slapped by a judge for making deals with customers and changing the terms after the fact. Plus they were the most complained about telco in the land. A total #Fail for a company who because of the tech that they have on offer could take out Rogers with ease. But that won’t happen as long as these issues exist. And to be frank I do not expect this to change in 2019. Though they are free to surprise me.
Hello Telus: My frustrations with Rogers and their lack of Apple Watch support led me to switch to Telus in 2018. Though their pricing was no different than Rogers or Bell, the quality of their customer service was completely different. It was refreshing to see that a Canadian “big three” telco can deliver a high standard of customer service in an era where nobody expects that from a Canadian telco. This level of customer service was more than enough to make my wife switch as well. Something that she later said she should have done years ago. I highly recommend Telus if anyone who wants to do business with a “big three” cellular provider. And if they offered their TV, phone and Internet offerings in Ontario, I’d switch those away from Rogers in a heartbeat.
Extortion Phishing Scam Emails Abound: Much of my year was spent highlighting a new type of scam email that preys upon those who surf for porn (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The emails show that you have to be on your toes to avoid not becoming a victim. This is a trend that sadly I expect to continue in 2019. But what will also continue in 2019 is that I will shine a light on this scam and any others that come to my attention as the scum who come up with these scams deserve to be found out for the low life sub-humans that they are.
Reviews, Reviews, And More Reviews: This year was a busy one for me as I did 48 product reviews this year. On top of all that, I did the fifth annual IT Nerd Awards. Without giving too much away, you can expect to see much more of that in 2019.
And now, here’s my top ten posts in terms of page views from this year:
1. Rogers Rolling Out New Modem/Routers For Ignite Internet…. Why You Should Care
2. Rogers Continued Inability To Support The Apple Watch With LTE Continues To Stoke Frustration
3. How To Fix “Windows can not connect to the printer 0x00000057”.
4. Review: GTA Car Kits Pure Bluetooth Car Kit
5. My Move From Rogers To TELUS Mobility [UPDATED]
6. Rogers Messaging About The Apple Watch With LTE May Be Sending The Wrong Message
7. A Brand New Extortion Phishing Scam Is Making The Rounds….. Here’s How Not To Become A Victim
8. Review: Rogers NextBox 3.0
9. A Plot Twist On The Rogers/Apple Watch Series 3 Story [UPDATED]
10. Don’t Fall For This Interac Scam That Is Delivered By Text Message
As if to highlight the fact that Rogers did not have a good year, FIVE stories related to Rogers pop up in the top ten. Only two were positive. You can push that to six if you count the story on my move to Telus which clearly people wanted to read about. That’s not good if you’re Rogers. Clearly, Rogers has some serious work to do in 2019 to turn this around as from a PR perspective, this is pretty bad. The other thing that I note is that two stories about scams that I tripped over made the top ten. And Microsoft should really do something to address that printer issue as that’s been in the top ten year after year.
And the top ten countries that visited my blog in 2018 are:
- Canada
- United States
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- India
- Indonesia
- France
- Singapore
- Philippines
In all, people from 191 countries visit this blog. It shows that my blog has a global reach with almost 1.7 million page views this year.
Here’s to 2019 as for better or worse, the tech world is really going to be very interesting. And I will be here to comment on it.
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This entry was posted on December 28, 2018 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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2018: Year In Review
At this time of year I like to look back over the past 365 days and pick out the stories that really got my attention. Now if you have something that you think that should be on this list, leave a comment with your thoughts. Now on to the top stories of the year:
#DeleteFacebook: The number one story of the year has to be Facebook. Whether we’re talking about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, other data leakage issues that Facebook disclosed, or the info that Facebook collected on everyone so that they could monetize it, or Facebook becoming very shifty in terms of taking responsibility anything, this is the story that everyone was talking about. And people talked about getting Facebook out of their lives as the company has pretty much proved that they cannot be trusted. Which is something that I do not believe will go away in 2019 as Facebook is in deep trouble with no clear path to rescue themselves.
The Fall Of Apple: Apple briefly was a trillion dollar company this year. The high points for Apple end there. #BatteryGate carried over from last year, as did their poor software quality which at Christmas was highlighted by iOS 12.1.2 which created issues for cellular data for iPhone users far and wide. Not to mention that a watchOS update bricked a ton of Apple Watches and #KeyboardGate. To add to the low points comes #BendGate 2.0 which involves Apples brand new iPad Pro arriving to customers bent, which somehow according to Apple is “normal”, and Apple deciding to no longer report how many iPhones they sell in a given quarter which implies that we’ve reached peak iPhone sales and the only direction that they will go is down. Something that is clearly highlighted by the fact that Apple for the first time ever is offering incentives for you to buy the iPhone XR. Something that they might not have had to do if they did’t price the things so high. Clearly Apple is a company in deep trouble with issues that likely have Steve Jobs spinning in his grave. Barring some miracle, I see no change in that in 2019.
Rogers On The Back Foot…. Again: Canada’s largest telco was caught out this year again this year on multiple fronts. Let’s start with their problems with the Apple Watch which continued into 2018. Sure they ultimately got support for Apple’s wearable device by September of this year, but only for consumers. Business customers need not apply. Then they muddied the message when Apple announced that they supported the eSIM standard in the new iPhones that came out this year, but Rogers didn’t know anything about that. But what may be a long term issue for Rogers is the fact that their Internet offerings pale in comparison with what Bell Canada offers. And Rogers has no clear path to catch up to Bell. I think it’s safe to say that 2019 is going to be a very difficult year for Rogers as they seem not to be able to get their act together.
Bell Canada Not Helping Their Own Cause: It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Bell. Sure they were aggressively expanding their fibre footprint to make Rogers life miserable. But unfortunately for them, they got slapped by a judge for making deals with customers and changing the terms after the fact. Plus they were the most complained about telco in the land. A total #Fail for a company who because of the tech that they have on offer could take out Rogers with ease. But that won’t happen as long as these issues exist. And to be frank I do not expect this to change in 2019. Though they are free to surprise me.
Hello Telus: My frustrations with Rogers and their lack of Apple Watch support led me to switch to Telus in 2018. Though their pricing was no different than Rogers or Bell, the quality of their customer service was completely different. It was refreshing to see that a Canadian “big three” telco can deliver a high standard of customer service in an era where nobody expects that from a Canadian telco. This level of customer service was more than enough to make my wife switch as well. Something that she later said she should have done years ago. I highly recommend Telus if anyone who wants to do business with a “big three” cellular provider. And if they offered their TV, phone and Internet offerings in Ontario, I’d switch those away from Rogers in a heartbeat.
Extortion Phishing Scam Emails Abound: Much of my year was spent highlighting a new type of scam email that preys upon those who surf for porn (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The emails show that you have to be on your toes to avoid not becoming a victim. This is a trend that sadly I expect to continue in 2019. But what will also continue in 2019 is that I will shine a light on this scam and any others that come to my attention as the scum who come up with these scams deserve to be found out for the low life sub-humans that they are.
Reviews, Reviews, And More Reviews: This year was a busy one for me as I did 48 product reviews this year. On top of all that, I did the fifth annual IT Nerd Awards. Without giving too much away, you can expect to see much more of that in 2019.
And now, here’s my top ten posts in terms of page views from this year:
1. Rogers Rolling Out New Modem/Routers For Ignite Internet…. Why You Should Care
2. Rogers Continued Inability To Support The Apple Watch With LTE Continues To Stoke Frustration
3. How To Fix “Windows can not connect to the printer 0x00000057”.
4. Review: GTA Car Kits Pure Bluetooth Car Kit
5. My Move From Rogers To TELUS Mobility [UPDATED]
6. Rogers Messaging About The Apple Watch With LTE May Be Sending The Wrong Message
7. A Brand New Extortion Phishing Scam Is Making The Rounds….. Here’s How Not To Become A Victim
8. Review: Rogers NextBox 3.0
9. A Plot Twist On The Rogers/Apple Watch Series 3 Story [UPDATED]
10. Don’t Fall For This Interac Scam That Is Delivered By Text Message
As if to highlight the fact that Rogers did not have a good year, FIVE stories related to Rogers pop up in the top ten. Only two were positive. You can push that to six if you count the story on my move to Telus which clearly people wanted to read about. That’s not good if you’re Rogers. Clearly, Rogers has some serious work to do in 2019 to turn this around as from a PR perspective, this is pretty bad. The other thing that I note is that two stories about scams that I tripped over made the top ten. And Microsoft should really do something to address that printer issue as that’s been in the top ten year after year.
And the top ten countries that visited my blog in 2018 are:
In all, people from 191 countries visit this blog. It shows that my blog has a global reach with almost 1.7 million page views this year.
Here’s to 2019 as for better or worse, the tech world is really going to be very interesting. And I will be here to comment on it.
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This entry was posted on December 28, 2018 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.