“With the financial situation in Greece still in turmoil, Apple is staging its own small scale bailout,” Jo Best reports for ZDNet.
“The company confirmed to ZDNet that it will not be charging iCloud users for the next month,” Best reports. “‘Our sympathies are with our customers in Greece who have experienced an interruption in their iCloud accounts as a result of the fiscal crisis. To ensure our customers in Greece continue to have access to their content stored in iCloud during this difficult time, we’ve extended their iCloud storage plans for an extra 30 days at no additional cost,’ Apple said in a statement.”
Best reports, “As a result of the crisis, Greek citizens couldn’t make credit card payments or bank transfers to foreign companies, meaning they were unable to pay their iCloud subscriptions.”
Read more in the full article here.
“After months of acrimony, Greece finally clinched a bailout agreement with its European creditors on Monday that will, if implemented, secure the country’s place in the euro and avoid financial collaps,” Pan Pylas and Raf Casert report for The Associate Press. “The terms of the deal, however, will be painful both for Greeks and their radical left-led government, which since its election in January had vowed to stand up to the creditors and reject the budget cuts they have been demanding.”
“Before it can get 85 billion euros ($95.07 billion) in bailout cash and support for its banks to reopen, the Greek government will have to pass a raft of austerity measures that include sales tax increases, reforms to pensions, and labor market reforms,” Pylas and Casert report. “Greece will be on a tight timetable to implement its reforms — a reflection of how little its creditors trust the government to honor a deal. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras infuriated his European partners last month when he called for a popular vote against economic reforms the creditors has proposed. The Greek people voted against those proposals, but will be horrified to see that they now face even tougher measures.”
“When the banks will be able to reopen will depend on whether the European Central Bank decides to increase emergency credit to Greek banks now that a bailout deal with Greece has been clinched in principle,” Pylas and Casert report. “It was unclear whether the ECB would make such a decision on Monday or after Greece passes its first batch of reforms.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good move by Apple. Hopefully, many important lessons will be learned from this fiscal debacle.