We missed yesterday’s podcast due to a conflict, but we’re back today with all sorts of great news for you:
- Yet another person can thank the Apple Watch for saving his life, after a New York man followed his Watch’s advice to seek medical attention immediately after suffering from a ruptured ulcer
- Just a reminder: your Mom wants flowers for Mother’s Day on May 13th, and you can get some nice deals by using Apple Pay to pay for them
- The big beneficiary of all of the negative news about Apple from Wall Street analysts during the past few months was Apple, which was able to buy up a record amount of its shares at a discount price
- Apple’s iPads are bucking the trend of shrinking tablet market share
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Text Version
This is Steve Sande for Apple World Today, and you’re listening to the AWT News Update podcast for Thursday, May 3rd, 2018. In case you missed yesterdays AWT News Update podcast…there was no AWT News Update podcast.
On Tuesday, we had a story about a young woman who credited the Apple Watch for saving her life. Today we have a similar story. This time it was New York resident William Monzidelis, who was at work at his family bowling alley business. He became dizzy and went to the bathroom, where he began bleeding. Almost immediately, his Apple Watch told him to seek medical attention immediately. Monzidelis took his symptoms and the notification seriously, and he had his mother drive him to the hospital. While on the way to the hospital, Monzidelis had seizures and was bleeding from his mouth and rectum. During that half-hour drive, Monzidelis was going in and out of consciousness and ended up losing almost 80 percent of his blood. Medical personnel determined that he had an erupted ulcer, and had lost so much blood that he needed a transfusion just so the anesthesia could travel to his brain and knock him out for the surgery. Doctors think that if Monzidelis hadn’t received the Apple Watch notification when he did, he may have died as he wouldn’t have paid attention to his symptoms. About those skeptical about technology, Monzidelis said “Hopefully my story can push them to use technology. In my case, it was like a little angel watching me. It really was a magical device.”
Apple keeps having special promotions to get people who don’t use Apple Pay to try out the contactless pay system. With Mother’s Day coming up on May 13, Apple has made deals with 1-800-Flowers, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s,Lululemon, Etsy, Soothe and Print Studio. We want you to at least get flowers for your Mom, and you can do that through the 1-800-Flowers Gift Collection in that company’s app and get 15% off by paying with Apple Pay.
During the March quarter, we heard from a lot of Apple analysts on Wall Street, all of whom were saying that the company was not going to meet its estimates for the quarter, which drove the stock price down. Guess what? That unnecessary panic from analysts ended up helping Apple, which bought back a record $23.5 billion of its own stock. It was able to grab up the shares at a bargain price thanks to the financial analysts who were absolutely sure that Apple was going to kill the iPhone X.
One other thing that we learned after Tuesday’s Apple earnings call was that the company is bucking the trend of falling tablet market share, with almost 9.1 million iPads sold in the first quarter of 2018 alone and a market share just below 30 percent. The iPad Pro sold 1.8 million units, and has the top spot in what’s called the “detachable” tablet market — that is, tablets that generally use a Bluetooth or Smart Connector keyboard. IDC, which announced the figures in its Worldwide Quarter Tablet Tracker report, thinks that the launch of the new iPad during the quarter “should prove to be quite lucrative in the coming quarters.”
That’s all the news for today – join me tomorrow afternoon for another edition of the AWT News Update.
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