On today’s Apple World Today News Update podcast, we have news of a couple of deals that you might want to take advantage of before Black Friday next week:
- DirecTV Now will be offering a free 32GB Apple TV 4K if you prepay for 4 months of the service
- The iPhone X is now shipping in 2 to 3 weeks…which could be good or bad news
- Apple retail stores are selling an Alpine White DJI Mavic Pro drone combo for $1049.95, and it’s a pretty good deal
- GymKit is starting to roll out at a group of fitness centers in Australia
The text version of the podcast can be read below. To listen to the podcast here, click the play button on the player below. Apple News readers need to visit Apple World Today in order to listen to the podcast.
Text Version
This is Steve Sande for Apple World Today, and you’re listening to the AWT News Update podcast for Wednesday, November 15th, 2017. Not too much news today, but we have a few fun stories.
Have you been thinking about getting an Apple TV 4K but you just didn’t want to shell out the dollars to do so? Well, if you’re willing to subscribe to DirecTV Now, which is AT&T’s streaming service, you can actually get 4 months of content and the Apple TV 4K if you pre-pay for those four months. The deal is expected to start on November 17, which is this Friday. If you buy the base DirecTV Now package for $35 per month, you’ll be out $140 plus taxes for the service with a free Apple TV 4K thrown in. The 32GB model, which is what DirecTV is allegedly going to be promoting, normally runs $179 so this is really quite a nice deal. Now, if they’d just throw in a 4K TV while they’re at it, we’d all have a very Merry Christmas…
This is good news — the iPhone X is now shipping within two to three weeks of ordering if you live in the US. Of course, we could look at this two ways, both good and bad. The good news would be that the production issues with the iPhone X are gone for good and the ramp up in production has gone well. The bad news could be that Apple’s not selling as many iPhone Xs as expected. Judging from the comments I’ve heard from a number of people — including former Apple haters who have ended up purchasing the iPhone X — it’s most likely good news.
If you’re considering a drone as a gift for yourself or others in the upcoming holiday season, there’s a special version of the DJI Mavic Pro available only at Apple Stores. DJI will be selling this as a special holiday bundle. The Mavic Pro will be a unique Alpine White color, which might not be perfect in places that get a lot of snow, and it will be packaged with the remote controller, two extra intelligent flight batteries, two additional pairs of propellers and a sleeve. The controller, batteries, and even the propellors will be in that same Alpine White color. The Mavic Pro is a very capable drone with a maximum flight time of 27 minutes, a control range of up to 7 kilometers (that’s 4.2 miles), a 3-axis gimbal with a 4K video camera on it, and it can be controlled with the controller and an iPhone or just an iPhone and the DJI Go 4 app.
Remember GymKit? It’s the technology that Apple is encouraging fitness equipment manufacturers to build into their gear that connects cardio equipment with the Apple Watch. GymKit is beginning to roll out in Australia, with the Fitness First gym in central Sydney becoming the first gym in the world to roll out the feature. GymKit-enabled machines will be available at Firness First in Bond Street, Barangaroo, Bondi and at the Richmond club in Melbourne in the next few days, then rolling out to other locations. Apple’s currently working with companies like TechnoGym, Life Fitness, Matrix, StairMaster and Schwinn to implement GymKit.
That’s all for today; I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.
