AWT News Update: September 11, 2017

It’s the day before a BIG Apple event, so today’s podcast is a bit shorter than usual:

• There’s already at least one person in line for the new iPhone, although it won’t ship for at least two weeks…
• Apple World Today will have plenty of coverage of tomorrow’s event, on Twitter, Facebook and tomorrow night on YouTube
• The LTE Apple Watch may be able to send and receive calls on the same phone number you have for your iPhone
• The Steve Jobs Theater only received a temporary occupancy permit on September 1, with the fire department providing “approval with conditions”

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 September 11, 2017. 

Would you believe that people are already lining up for the iPhone X and iPhone 8? Now, this is a phone that will probably open for pre-orders online this Friday, September 15, but most likely won’t be in the hands of consumers until the following Friday, September 22. CNBC noted that people started camping out in front of the Sydney, Australia Apple retail store today. The first guy in line has a lawn chair, a MacBook, an iPhone, what appears to be an extended battery pack for the iPhone, and a can of Monster Energy drink. If he’s intending on waiting until September 22, we can only hope that someone brings him some food every day.

The team at Apple World Today will be covering tomorrow’s event, so be sure to stop by the website and check out our social media channels on Twitter and Facebook all day. Tomorrow night, we’re planning on an AWT TV show to discuss the day’s announcements and what we think was cool… or not. Join us for the show tomorrow evening at 6:30 PM PT / 9:30 PM ET on our YouTube channel. 

As the speculation about the LTE Apple Watch has been building over the past few weeks, many believed that it would not be able to make voice phone calls, except through VoIP services like Skype or FaceTime. Now 9to5Mac is saying that the LTE Apple Watch will apparently share the same phone number as your iPhone, so you might be able to take calls on both devices. Usually, devices that are only being used for data, like a Wi-Fi + Cellular iPad Pro for example, are assigned new phone numbers, so this is a little different than what we’ve seen in the past. 

Tomorrow’s Apple Event will be the first ever held at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park campus, and it turns out that Apple just got a temporary occupancy permit for the theater on September 1. The document was signed off by Cupertino Building Official Albert Salvador, as well as by people in the planning, fire and public works departments. Interestingly enough, the fire department only provided approval with conditions — although we don’t know what those conditions are. 

That’s all for today; I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.