Galaxy Fold Event Delayed; Tesla Starts Selling Model 3 From Inventory; SiriusxM ‘Essential’ Plan for Smart Speakers; Apple- $30 Million a Month with AWS

Samsung has postponed their Galaxy Fold media events in China, after a number of units provided to the media for review have failed or become broken in days. According to reuters.com, Samsung says there are ‘a few’ reports of damage to displays on the folding, nearly $2000 phablet. There are worries about another fiasco like the Galaxy Note 7 of a few years ago which had problems with battery fires and had to be pulled from the market. So far, Samsung has not said anything about changing the US release date.

Tesla is going after more impulse buyers for its Model 3. After a slowdown in deliveries on the heels of a record quarter, they have begun selling over the website from inventory. Engadget.com reports that buyers can pick a car from inventory and get delivery in hours or days instead of weeks or months. Some of the inventory Model 3s come from floor models or test drive models, so are, in effect, demonstrators.

SiriusXM has announced a new plan called SiriusXM Essential that is aimed at listening at home through smart speakers and on mobile devices, and not cars. Techcrunch.com says the plan is $8 a month, compared to the $15.99 and up prices they list for in-car services. The service can work over Alexa powered devices, as well as Apple TV, Roku, Sonos, Xbox, the Sony PlayStation and phones, tablets, and desktops too. An introductory plan is available right now at $1 for the 1st 3 months, before going to the regular $8 fee.

Apple is dropping a princely $30 million a month with Amazon Web Services to support the likes of iCloud. CNBC.com notes that of late, Apple has been trying to put more and more emphasis on services, to take pressure off selling more iPhones all the time. Some of the AWS space supports the iOS App Store, Apple Pay, and as mentioned above, iCloud, in addition to the new subscription services for news, magazines, and video. Apple is planning on dropping $10 billion on it’s own data centers in the US the next 5 years. Right now, in addition to AWS, they also use Google, and have relied on Microsoft cloud services in the past.