We’re back for another day of news with the Apple World Today News Update Podcast:
- Apple’s offering a $50 credit to anyone who paid for an out-of-warranty battery replacement for an iPhone 6 or newer device during 2017
- A longtime Windows developer brings Frooty Loops to Mac
- Seeing a lot of Apple Watches? It’s not surprising — Canalys says Apple sold an estimated 3.8 million Apple Watches in the first three months of 2018
- Ground hasn’t been broken for Foxconn’s Wisconsin display factory, but now rumor has it that the company might produce smaller displays for Apple and automakers at the plant instead of TV displays
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, May 23rd, 2018.
Continuing with its battery replacement program that started in 2017, Apple today announced that it will offer a $50 credit to any customer who paid for an out-of-warranty battery replacement for an iPhone 6 or newer iPhone between January 1 and December 28 of 2017. The offer is available to anyone who had a battery replacement done at an Apple Store, Apple Repair Center or Apple Authorized Service Provider during that time period. Replacements done at a third-party repair outlet are not eligible for the refund. Apple will contact eligible customer via email between now and July 27, with complete instructions on how to receive the credit. If you feel that you’re eligible and don’t receive the email by August 1, contact Apple support for assistance.
With the Mac becoming more and more mainstream, some longtime Windows developers are finally embracing the Apple platform. For the past 20 years, a company named Image-Line has sold a digital audio workstation called FL Studio to Windows users. FL Studio is also affectionately known as Fruity Loops, and with FL Studio 20 the app is now available in a macOS version. There’s a companion app for iOS that has been available for a while — FL Studio Mobile runs on both iPhone and iPad and sells for $13.99. The basic version of FL Studio — the Fruity Edition — costs $99, while the complete package with all plugins (some of which don’t work with the Mac version) is $899. There are other in-between versions as well.
If it seems like you’re seeing Apple Watches everywhere these days, you’re right — analytics firm Canalys says that Apple sold an estimated 3.8 million units in the first three months of 2018, slightly more than Chinese rival Xiaomi. Of course, Apple’s product is quite a bit more profitable for the company than Xiaomi’s “Mi Band”, which makes up 90 percent of that company’s shipments. The next three biggest wearables companies by unit sales were Fitbit, Garmin and Huawei.
Last year we had a podcast article about a $10 billion factory being built by Apple supplier Foxconn in the state of Wisconsin. The plant was originally planned to create large displays for products like TVs, but now a report from Nikkei says that the company may actually start producing small to medium sized displays at the plant for Apple and automakers in an attempt to cut costs. Of course, that rumor is dependent on U.S. production of Apple products, as having to ship displays to China for assembly in final products would negate any savings in creating the displays locally. That begs the question of whether Apple is considering building assembly plants in the U.S. — currently, the only product that’s made in the country is the Mac Pro. Foxconn is expected to break ground on the new plant on June 28th of this year.
That’s all the news for today – join me tomorrow afternoon for the next edition of the AWT News Update.
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