Showing posts with label here’s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label here’s. Show all posts

Friday, February 9, 2018

Here’s How Much It’ll Cost to Fix Your Busted Apple HomePod

Whatever you do, treat your new Apple HomePod with care.

Apple has published a new support page on its HomePod that says the company will charge customers $ 279 to repair a HomePod that is broken and out of warranty. If customers need to ship back the HomePod to Apple for repair, the company will charge an additional $ 19.95, bringing the price to $ 300 to repair an ailing HomePod. Apple charges $ 349 for a new HomePod—$ 50 more than it’ll charge to fix a damaged unit.

Luckily, you won’t need to worry about that cost anytime soon. Apple’s standard HomePod warranty covers repairs on the unit for one year. The standard warranty also includes 90 days of complimentary telephone support. After that, however, you’re on your own unless you bought the AppleCare+ HomePod warranty for your smart speaker. That option extends repairs and telephone support to two years. It’s also nicely affordable at $ 39 and a far sight from the $ 279 it’ll take to repair the device.

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Apple’s pricing is no surprise to those who have dealt with damaged products in the past. Apple is notorious for assigning high prices on repairs, which make some people think opting for AppleCare+ is the way to go. And in many cases, it is.

HomePod support pricing comes as Apple has started selling the smart speaker it unveiled last year. The device, which is now available in Apple’s stores and the company’s online marketplace, supports the company’s Siri virtual personal assistant, giving users voice control to turn on music, control smart home devices, and more.

Apple has also said that the HomePod will sound substantially better than its competitors, including Amazon Echo and Google Home.


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Thursday, February 8, 2018

Here’s Why Analysts Are Still Frustrated With Twitter Despite It Reporting Its First Profit

Twitter surprised investors and followers Thursday with revenue gains and its first profit, but some analysts say the company is still withholding vital information.

Twitter (twtr), on its earnings conference call, declined to give hard daily active user (DAU) statistics, simply saying it achieved its fifth consecutive quarter of double digit DAU growth, with a 12% year-over-year increase. That’s all well and good, say analysts, but without actual numbers, it’s a relatively meaningless boast.

“The DAU growth metric is literally the FIRST THING in their shareholder letter,” said Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter via Twitter. “Their excuse that they won’t disclose is lame. If they can’t tell us the numbers, why brag about growth? It’s either important (and should be disclosed) or not (and should be ignored).”

Pachter’s frustration grew as the call went on.

And he wasn’t the only critic.

Relying on percentage growth figures without giving any sort of base is an old trick of corporations. The reigning king of this strategy is Amazon, which has yet to give hard numbers regarding Amazon Prime members, though it has regularly touted the service’s membership growth.

While Twitter won’t disclose the number of daily users, it did, however, shed some light on monthly active users. That number was roughly the same as the prior quarter at 330 million, a lower-than-projected total that the company attributed in part to stepped-up efforts to reduce spam, malicious activity, and fake accounts.


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