Dish Wraps Boost Buy; Apple Card Site; Prime Day Further Delayed; Google-Fitbit Deal Scrutinized

Dish Network has completed a $1.4 billion acquisition of Boost Mobile, a former Sprint subsidiary that resells prepaid mobile service. After years of buying up spectrum but never delivering service, Dish is finally a mobile provider—albeit as a reseller that doesn’t yet operate its own network. According to arstechnica.com, Dish was able to buy Boost as part of the merger agreement in which the Department of Justice allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint. The DOJ required T-Mobile and Sprint to sell Dish the prepaid business as well as spectrum licenses and wholesale access to the combined T-Mobile/Sprint network. The prepaid sale and wholesale access are intended to let Dish operate a wireless business as a network reseller while it builds its own 5G network that could eventually make it the fourth major wireless provider.

Apple has introduced a new web portal for managing its Apple Card credit card (including paying bills, viewing the current balance, and seeing past bill statements), which makes the experience as a whole less reliant on an iPhone or iPad. AppleInsider reports that
up to now, you had to use the Wallet app, which made it far less easy to access than a traditional credit card. The new web portal (located, naturally, at card.apple.com) doesn’t completely eliminate the need for an iPhone or iPad, however: you’ll still need to own one of Apple’s devices to actually apply for the Apple Card, which means, despite the web portal, it’s still effectively locked to Apple customers only.

Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale is being delayed to October amid concerns over how coronavirus spikes may impact the supply chain, according to a report Thursday from Business Insider. Prime Day is typically held in July, but a later date this year was expected due to the the coronavirus pandemic. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was looking to hold the sales event in September. Now it appears Prime Day may get pushed back even further. A spokesperson for Amazon said the company hasn’t yet made any announcements regarding Prime Day.

Back in November, Google announced that it was acquiring Fitbit and that the deal would close sometime in 2020. The purchase was immediately scrutinized amid mounting criticism of Big Tech, and the European Union could now be “gearing up for an extended investigation and may block the transaction.” The Financial Times reports that Europe’s regulators are primarily concerned with Fitbit — and its data — advancing Google’s search and advertising dominance. Meanwhile, US officials have yet to signal whether or not they will approve the deal.