It’s Slow News Wednesday™, but we dredged up some great little stories designed to both inform and hopefully entertain you:
- Former KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo hasn’t let his new career stop his rumors, this time about the Apple Watch Series 4
- The Apple Watch Series 3 Cellular + GPS will now run on two more carriers in the US: US Cellular and C Spire
- Like your Ring Video Doorbell? That experience is about to come to a full do-it-yourself home security system from the company, now available for pre-order and shipping in early July
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, June 13th, 2018. This week’s podcast is sponsored by PDFelement 6 from Wondershare. It’s the most powerful and popular PDF creation, editing and sharing app for Mac and iOS, and you can download a free trial. Read all about it on Apple World Today.
We love nothing more than juicy, unsubstantiated rumors about our favorite Apple products, and now some rumors are coming out about the Apple Watch Series 4. The rumors are from Ming-Chi Kuo, who recently left KGI Securities where he worked as an analyst and pro rumormonger. Today’s word from Kuo is that the next model of Apple Watch is supposed to have a “more trendy form factor design” with no buttons. That wouldn’t surprise me, actually — the side button isn’t used much and the Digital Crown seems like it’s lonely, so why not just have a bunch of gestures control it all? Along with the new design will come a bigger screen, according to Kuo. Of course, it can’t get much bigger or it won’t have the convenient size of a watch. Kuo was really stretching for the next two rumors: the new Apple Watch will have better battery life and GPS. And although he offered absolutely no idea what these would be, Kuo says the new Watch will have “new health tracking sensors”. If the new Watch does come out this year, it will most likely be announced in September about the same time that the next-generation iPhones are released.
Speaking of the Apple Watch, the LTE Model 3 has traditionally been supported by only the big four carriers — AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Stating today, it’s possible to connect the cellular Watch to wireless networks run by US Cellular and C Spire. US Cellular and C Spire are the fifth and sixth largest wireless providers in the US, and they’re both offering three months of free trial service for Watch owners. After that time, US Cellular will charge $5 a month while C Spire will charge $10 monthly.
If you’re thinking about getting away from your home security company and going on your own, your ship might be about to come in. Ring, the company that makes the popular Ring video doorbell, has opened up the new Ring DIY home alarm system for pre-order, with the device shipping in just a few weeks. For $199, potential cord-cutters get a motion detector, window and door sensor, alarm keypad and a range extender for the Z-Wave home automation tools. Extra door and window sensors are just $20 each, extra motion detectors run $30, an extra alarm keypad runs $50, and more range extenders are $25 each. If you want professional monitoring of your home security system, it’s just $10 a month.
Join me tomorrow afternoon for the next edition of the AWT News Update.
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