Reporter Jen St. Denis on the stories that caught her eye this week
I use an iPhone 4S I bought secondhand from a friend about a year ago. It works fine and I’m too cheap to shell out for a new phone (or too lazy to go through the rigamarole of Craigslist postings and preorders). But this week the tech press was whipped up into a FRENZY!!!! describing the latest Apple doo-dads. Business in Vancouver reported on the reveal and on how some local businesses plan to use the Apple TV for business, not play.
(Meanwhile, this Craigslist poster is selling his used iPhone 5c. Condition rated 9.5/10. Oh, and the screen is broken.)
One company that wasn’t as thrilled about the release of the iPhone 6S was Vancouver marketer 6S. Unfortunately, a campaign to get Apple to name the new phone the iPhone 7 didn’t succeed. This story really illustrates how important Google search rankings have become for companies.
School started this week and children skipped merrily to class while behind the scenes, their parents scrambled madly to reestablish the grinding morning routine and shouted “Shoes! Where are your shoes!”
Keeping with the theme of new beginnings and fresh starts, Apple wasn’t the only company to unveil new shiny products. Nordstrom’s press tour on Thursday was breathlessly documented down to the last Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo and Miu Miu (there are five shoe departments). Meanwhile, the sparkly new department store may have a ripple effect on the rest of Granville Street in the form of new restaurants and more expensive coffee.
Someone else who’s trying for a fresh start? Stephen Harper. This week his reelection campaign brought on veteran campaigner Lynton Crosby, who’s lent his winning, Karl-Rovish touch to conservative campaigns in Australia and the U.K. This after the Conservatives fell to third place in a Nanos poll, suggesting Harper’s hold-the-line stance on the Syrian refugee crisis has eroded voter support. Crosby has been called an "Australian rottweiler" and is reportedly fond of throwing a dead cat on the table (the dead cat being an issue to distract media attention).
Meanwhile, in North Vancouver Justin Trudeau played the hip-flip game with Nardwuar the Human Serviette. Stephen Harper has never played the hip-flip game.
If you’re wondering what we’re reading right now in our newsroom, it’s the Vancouver Sun’s damning story on the very questionable safety record of Petronas, the Malaysian energy company that is currently B.C.’s best hope of developing an LNG plant here. The audit of the company's operations in Malaysia showed serious and “systematic” problems with lack of traning and regular inspections leading to “’severe’ corrosion issues threatening the structural integrity of the facilities.”
Brent Stafford, executive producer for the regulatory watchdog organization RegultorWatch, pointed out that environmental and industrial standards in Canada are more stringent than they might be in Malaysia.
But he said the Petronas audit being made public can’t help but damage the company’s profile and feed cynicism towards the company, and he believes the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency will now have to include the audit in its assessment of the proposed B.C. LNG project.
@jenstden
