Tech breakthroughs take a backseat in upcoming Apple iPhone launch

SAN FRANCISCO - When Apple Inc. launches its much-anticipated 10th anniversary iPhone this fall, it will offer an unwitting lesson in how much the smartphone industry it pioneered has matured.

The new iPhone is expected to include new features such as high-resolution displays, wireless charging and 3-D sensors. Rather than representing major breakthroughs, however, most of the innovations have been available in competing phones for several years.

Apple's relatively slow adoption of new features both reflects and reinforces the fact smartphone customers are holding onto their phones longer. Timothy Arcuri, an analyst at Cowen & Co, believes upwards of 40 percent of iPhones on the market are more than two years old, a historical high.

That is a big reason why investors have driven Apple shares to an all-time high. There is pent-up demand for a new iPhone, even if it does not offer breakthrough technologies.

It is not clear whether Apple deliberately held off on packing some of the new features into the current iPhone 7, which has been criticized for a lack of differentiation from its predecessor. Apple declined to comment on the upcoming product.

Still, the development and roll-out of the anniversary iPhone suggest Apple’s product strategy is driven less by technological innovation than by consumer upgrade cycles and Apple’s own business and marketing needs.

"When a market gets saturated, the growth is all about refresh," said Bob O’Donnell of Technalysis Research. "This is exactly what happened to PCs. It's exactly what happened to tablets. It's starting to happen to smartphones."

Apple is close-mouthed about upcoming product features, but analysts and reports from Asian component suppliers and others indicate that high-resolution displays based on OLED technology -- possibly with curved edges -- are likely to be part of the anniversary phone. A radical new design is not expected, according to analysts.

Some of the anticipated new technologies, notably wireless charging, remain messy. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd phones, for example, feature wireless charging but support two different sets of standards, one called Qi and the other AirFuel.

Apple recently joined the group backing Qi. But there are still at least five different groups working on wireless charging technology within Apple, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

As to 3-D sensors, there is already one hiding in the iPhone 7. The front camera features what is known as a time-of-flight sensor, which helps it autofocus and is used in numerous phones including the Blackberry, according to TechInsights, a firm that examines the chips inside tech devices.

That sensor could be upgraded to a higher-resolution version that could handle 3-D mapping for facial recognition, said Jim Morrison, vice president at TechInsights.

Some analysts also speculate the company could remove the phone's home button, placing it and a fingerprint sensor beneath the front display glass, based on patents the company has filed.

SLOW GROWTH

Global smartphone sales were up only 2.3 percent to 1.47 billion units in 2016, according to IDC. Many carriers in the United States have stopped subsidizing phones, causing phone buyers to think harder about their next purchase.

Apple will likely make a heavy marketing push around the phone’s 10th anniversary. “IPhone set the standard for mobile computing in its first decade and we are just getting started. The best is yet to come,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in a statement Jan. 8, the date the iPhone was announced by then-CEO Steve Jobs in 2007.

In 2015, the last year it disclosed the figure, Apple spent $1.8 billion on advertising, up 50 percent from the year before and nearly four times the $467 million it spent in 2007 when it first released the iPhone.

And the company continues to excel at selling higher-priced phones. Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri attributed the most recent quarter's record-setting 78.3 million iPhones sold to the iPhone 7 Plus, which for the first time included a new dual camera feature not found in other models.

The iPhone 7 Plus tops out at $969 with memory upgrades and a jet black finish. O'Donnell of Technalysis Research believes that with the next iPhone, Apple might even introduce a $1,000-plus “ultra-premium device for the real Apple-crazed folks out there who want to stand out."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Apple jack axe ushers in a voice-driven world

New iPhone 7 ditches the audio jack; offers adapter

The new Apple iPhone has something missing: the small socket millions of us have used for years to plug in headphones.

While some fans opposed the widely anticipated move -- one online petition urging Apple to keep the headphone jack drew more than 300,000 signatures -- equipment suppliers and experts heralded a change in how users will interact with their devices.

Axing the jack, they say, paves the way for discreet, bean-sized earbuds that can simultaneously translate, filter out unwanted noise or let us control other devices by voice -- and drive up the value of the so-called "hearables" market to $16 billion within five years.

It's the vision of the futuristic 2013 movie "Her," where a human has a love affair with a disembodied voice in his ear. But some who follow the industry say it's closer than many think, noting improvements in wireless technologies, materials, artificial intelligence and battery life.

"It's surprisingly close," says Nick Hunn, a UK-based consultant who works with manufacturers and a group defining the short-range wireless Bluetooth standard.

UN-WIRED

Apple justified the removal of the jack as a courageous move to ditch a 100-year-old technology and make more space inside the iPhone. It offered as alternatives a lightning cable earphone and an adapter for the old type, but touted new wireless earphones.

"It makes no sense to tether ourselves with cables to our mobile devices," said Phil Schiller, senior VP of worldwide marketing, announcing the launch of AirPods, Apple's own wireless earbuds using the firm's new wireless W1 chip, and costing $159.

"We're just at the beginning of a truly wireless future we've been working towards for many years," added chief design officer Jonathan Ive.

And that great uncabling has already begun.

Speakers were first: more than 100 million wireless speakers will be sold this year, most of them using Bluetooth, according to SAR Insight and Consulting.

Now it's headsets: spending on wireless headsets overtook wired ones last year, says Steven LeBoeuf, founder of Valencell, a developer of biometric sensor technology for wearable devices.

The next step is to make those earphones smarter.

German wireless earbud start-up Bragi, for example, last week announced a partnership to hook up its earbuds with IBM's artificial intelligence engine, Watson. IBM said users would be able to communicate, monitor vital signs, receive and give instructions and translate from one language to another using Bragi's smart earphones.

Firefighters would be better able to hear and locate victims and colleagues, and co-workers could collaborate using both hands, said Bragi CEO Nikolaj Hviid.

"This is not about making headphones," he said. "It's about taking the user interface from your eyes and hand and having a much more discreet one when needed. It's part of a bigger puzzle."

INTELLIGENT ASSISTANCE

That bigger puzzle includes improving how computers understand human commands.

Apple pointed to improvements in its Siri voice control software, which can be activated by double tapping the AirPod.

Other major technology companies are also making strides, with Amazon.com Inc.'s Alexa software letting you control an Internet-connected speaker with your voice. Alphabet's Google has its own version.

Among China's technology leaders, Baidu is working on improving transcribing speech, and says its Deep Speech 2 system can transcribe English and Chinese about three times faster than a human. It says the number of voice interactions with its products has tripled since the start of last year.

Start-ups, too, are forging a path. New York-based Scarlet, funded by Samsung Electronics, this year launched an intelligent assistant app that briefs the user on relevant information based on weather, outside events and your calendar.

Valencell has focused on putting biometrics in the earbud, such as measuring the user's heart rate. Its technology can be found in over a dozen products so far, says LeBoeuf.

Bragi has worked on solving some of the problems connecting two wireless buds with a device and with each other, and wants to "bring intelligence to wearables," says Hviid.

But there are still teething problems.

Hviid says Bragi's latest earbuds, launched this week, resolve many of the issues that drew criticism in the first generation product. Others say artificial intelligence is still not there, though it's much better than even a few years ago. "Apple's AI is not ready now," says Gonzalo Tudela, CEO of Vandrico Solutions, an enterprise wearables software company.

NO VOICE NEEDED
But many, including some major hardware players, sense the time is near.

Samsung last month launched its IconX wireless earbuds, which include biometrics, while Sony's Xperia Ear promises to deliver weather and message notifications via voice, and to recognize input either by voice or head movements. LG Electronics said last week it was including Alexa in its SmartThinQ Hub, a device used to connect home appliances over the Internet.

And some are already pioneering the next step -- where voice commands are unnecessary.

U.S. start-up Emotiv Systems is selling a $300 headset that allows the user to control software with the mind and face. This, says David Vivancos, an adviser to the company, is part of a shift "to custom apps that learn from your usage. Your app and my app will soon not be the same."

In the "Her" movie, the operating system becomes more and more personal. "There's a case to be made for a hearable OS," says Mari Joller, Scarlet's founder and CEO, "which capitalizes on the combination of sensors, mobility, context and privacy to enable experiences that are in many ways even more intimate and powerful than the smartphone."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Apple expected to polish lineup with new iPhone

Apple on Wednesday is expected to introduce a new iPhone and perhaps a second-generation smartwatch as it polishes its lineup of devices to shine during the year-end shopping season.

The rumor mill has been grinding away with talk of iPhone 7 models that will boast faster chips, more sophisticated cameras, and improved software while doing away with jacks for plugging in wired headphones.

To assuage users accustomed to wired headphones, Apple could roll out accessories that include an adaptor that plugs into a remaining port.

The event would also be a chance to showcase wireless headphones, perhaps some from Beats, which Apple bought two years ago in a deal valued at $3 billion.

"Though not a completely redesigned smartphone, I do expect Apple to announce enough innovation to the new iPhone 7 devices to maintain its leadership," said Forrester analyst Thomas Husson.

"In particular, the timing would be ideal for Apple to leverage its Beats acquisition and deliver new headphones -- bundling voice-based services from Siri with an Apple Music subscription offering."

In Apple's usual enigmatic style, it provided little more that the date, time and place to the invitation-only gathering.

Apple has maintained a rhythm of introducing updated iPhone models on an annual basis, timing introductions to coincide with the year-end holiday shopping season.

In July, the company announced the sale of its billionth iPhone, a milestone for the company as it seeks to keep momentum in a competitive smartphone market.

"We see a large opportunity for the iPhone 7 when we consider the potential number of upgraders coming from the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus," said Kantar Worldwide ComTech consumer insight director Lauren Guenveur.

"Virtually all of those who intend to upgrade have told us they will remain loyal to Apple, making the iPhone 7 an obvious choice."

Apple reported a drop in iPhone sales in the second quarter of this year, a second straight drop after uninterrupted growth since its introduction in 2007.

- Apple Watch time? -

California-based Apple could also use the event to showcase updates to other products, such as its smartwatch and laptop computers.

Speculation regarding an Apple Watch 2 was fueled in part by the fact that the original hardware has not been updated since it debuted in April of last year.

A new-generation smartwatch could play well into Apple's "ecosystem" of smartphones, apps, services and more but likely "won't be the disruptive new product that Apple needs," said analyst Husson.

Improved iPhone and smartwatch models would be arriving just as Apple is set to roll out a new version of the mobile operating system.

The event will come as Apple squares off with the European Union over a demand that the iPhone maker pay a record 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in back taxes in Ireland.

Apple has vowed to fight the tax bill.

source: www.abs=cbnnews.com

Apple unveils smaller, cheaper iPhone SE aimed at mid-market

CALIFORNIA - Apple Inc. on Monday (early Tuesday morning, Manila time) unveiled a smaller, cheaper iPhone aimed at new buyers, especially in emerging markets and China, as the technology company looks to reverse a decline in worldwide sales of its most important product.

The new device, called the iPhone SE, has a 4-inch (10-cm) screen and starts at $399. It represents Apple's second bid for the crowded mid-tier market after an unsuccessful foray three years ago. Orders start on Thursday, and the phone will be available next week.

The $399 starting price is well below the $649 for the current top iPhone model without a contract, which is beyond the reach of many. The new phone, with Apple's vaunted A9 chip, is much faster than Apple's previous attempt at an entry-level phone, launched in 2013. It also runs Apple Pay and comes in the wildly popular rose gold color.

Analysts had said before the event that a phone priced below $450 could be competitive with other mid-tier rivals, mostly running Google's Android system, and make an impact in emerging markets and China, the world's biggest buyer of smartphones.

Apple is hoping the cheaper model will stimulate overall iPhone sales, which it expects to decline this quarter for the first time since it essentially created the smartphone market nine years ago.

"There are people who want that smaller screen size," said Bob O'Donnell of TECHnalysis Research, but he warned that it may not be a sure-fire hit.

"It's a more attractive price point, but I don't think it moves the needle in emerging markets," he said. "You do a price cut when you need to drive the market a bit more."

Apple shares fell in the afternoon and were down about $0.15 at $105.77. The stock is down 20 percent from its all-time high closing price of $133 in February 2015, as Wall Street worries that the company does not have any blockbuster products in the pipeline.

The company showed off new wristbands for the Apple Watch and a new iPad Pro tablet at Monday's event, but it generated little excitement among investors.

“Apple is so big now that nothing seems to be earth-shaking anymore, and the strategy seems to be turning to offering complementary products like watch bands so they can maintain their sales momentum,” said Skip Aylesworth, portfolio manager of the Hennessy Technology Fund.

The more compact phone design comes after it expanded the size of the screens in its high-end iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus phones in 2014 to as large as 5.5 inches. That was broadly seen as an attempt to match rival Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) with its large-screen Galaxy phones.

Before the launch at Apple's leafy Cupertino, California headquarters, Chief Executive Tim Cook defended the company's refusal to comply with a U.S. court order to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in a December attack in San Bernardino, California.

Apple has a responsibility to protect customers' data and privacy, Cook said, adding that Apple "will not shrink from that responsibility." His statement was greeted by applause from the audience.

The tech company's dispute with the U.S. government has become a lightning rod for a broader debate on data privacy in the United States. The company is set to square off against the U.S. government at a court hearing on Tuesday, likely the first round in a long legal fight to avoid being forced to decrypt the iPhone.

Apple also announced a new scheme it called 'Liam' to take apart old iPhones and reuse the materials.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Apple aims to bolster lineup with new iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO -- New iPhone and iPad models likely to be unveiled Monday are aimed at helping Apple keep momentum in the fast-evolving mobile device market.

The media gathering at the company's intimate Town Hall auditorium in Silicon Valley will also give Apple a chance to restate its case for fighting a US government demand that it break into an attacker's iPhone.

Apple is widely expected to release a small-screen iPhone to encourage replacement of the 5S and 5C models, which have four-inch displays. The new device is to be called the iPhone SE or 5SE, reports said.

This would help Apple in a traditionally slow season before the likely upgrades to the large-screen iPhone 6 family later this year.

But in keeping with its practice, Apple has been tight-lipped about what it will reveal.

A message on copies of the invitations posted online simply states "Let us loop you in," prompting some to speculate that new bands for the Apple Watch would be among the announcements.

A four-inch screen iPhone which boasts improvements under the hood could help spur replacements.

Such an iPhone would be "an incremental positive" for Apple, ensuring that lovers of the company's smaller smartphones don't switch to rival devices powered by Android software, RBC Capital Markets said in a note to investors.

RBC projected that sales of a new handset would tally between 10 million to 15 million annually, giving Apple fans an option for upgrading before an iPhone 7 debuts late in the year.

The new iPhone will likely be priced to shore up the low-end of Apple's line but not to compete in the budget-priced smartphone market, according to analysts.

"I am not expecting a ton of surprises," Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin said of what Apple has in store for Monday. "The biggest news will be pricing for the newer iPhone."

Reaching buyers in India?

If Apple lowers the price for the new device -- existing big-screen iPhones start at around $650 -- it may be able to expand to new segments of consumers.

"I suspect this is far more about boosting off-season sales than it is about introducing a new iPhone at a dramatically lower price point, for example, for emerging markets," said Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research in a blog post.

But Dawson said the new handset could be priced as low as $450 without subsidy to help Apple make inroads in new markets.

This would enable Apple to sell refurbished iPhones at $250 to $350, according to Dawson and "suddenly allows the iPhone to hit price points it's never been able to hit before, which in turn could make it more viable in markets like India."

Reports have also said Apple is poised to introduce a new iPad tailored for use by businesses.

Talking encryption

The media event takes place a day before a federal judge in Southern California hears arguments in the encryption case.

"I do expect to hear a little bit from them because it is so central, not just to Apple," Current Analysis research director Avi Greengart told AFP.

"Encryption is pretty much the entire digital economy. There is an argument to be made that Apple is out in front and taking the heat for a crucial, industry-wide issue."

The new iPad may have keyboard and Apple Pencil stylus features that make it more attractive for getting work done. Apple has been trying to ignite sales of its tablets, which declined in the final quarter or last year.

Focusing exclusively on Apple hardware can be deceiving, since the company has won legions of devotees by weaving software, applications and devices together to provide people with experiences they enjoy, according to analysts.

"What you are really paying for is software and user experience," Greengart said of buying into Apple's world. "That has been Apple's business model for many years."

Apple has built privacy protection into its ecosystem and its valuable brand.

Apple has repeatedly argued that the FBI was overstepping legal bounds by using the 1789 All Writs Act -- a broad law which allows the courts to help law enforcement -- to compel the company to help break an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the December attack in San Bernardino, California.

Apple, which is backed by a broad coalition of powerful rival technology firms and activists, argues that the FBI is seeking a "back door" into all iPhones as part of the probe.

The government brief, in sharp contrast, argued it is a single case of technical assistance in an important national security investigation.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Signs of life for Apple's stock as Wall St eyes new iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO - After months of declines in Apple's stock, sentiment appears to be mending as investors focus on steady earnings expectations and bet that the expected launch of a new iPhone will add badly-needed fuel to sputtering sales.

Battered by nearly a year of off-and-on declines from record highs because of fears of a slowdown in iPhone sales, Apple's stock now is valued closer to IBM, which has disappointed Wall Street for the past four years with declining revenue, than to Silicon Valley technology pioneers Alphabet and Tesla Motors.

Apple shares have increased 5 percent in the past two weeks as Wall Street bets the company this month will launch a less expensive iPhone to boost sales in developing countries like China. With U.S. consumers upgrading their smartphones less often, manufacturers have been relying on China for growth.

Shareholders this week pointed to Apple's reliable cash generation, beaten down valuation and its wild card potential for future game-changing products as key reasons for owning it.

"This company has a history of doing better than expectations and surprising people," said Daniel Morgan, Senior Portfolio Manager at Synovus Trust Company, which holds over 1 million shares of Apple. "Where else can I go and find a company trading at 10 or 11 times earnings that has had such a great history?"

At $100.97 a share on Wednesday, Apple is selling at 10.7 times its expected earnings per share over the next 12 months. Its average forward price-earnings-ratio has been 13 over the past two years.

By comparison, Internet behemoth Alphabet, whose Android mobile platform competes against Apple's iOS, trades at 20 times expected earnings and 13-year old Tesla Motors trades at 132 times earnings. International Business Machines , which is struggling to expand into a high-growth business like cloud computing, has a P/E of 10.2, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"Unless something big happens, (Apple) doesn't deserve to trade at 20 to 25 times earnings anymore. It's just too big," said David Meier, a portfolio manager at Motley Fool Funds. "But as a high-quality company, could it trade at 15 times earnings? Certainly."

A target of 15 times its next 12 months' expected earnings would put Apple at around $138.

In another hint of improving sentiment, Apple's stock has recently moved above its 50-day moving average for the first time since December.

The stock's selloff in recent months has boosted Apple's dividend yield to 2.2 percent from 1.5 percent a year ago.

Analysts' covering Apple have been little help to investors. Ahead of the stock's 20-percent drop that started in December, 41 analysts recommended buying Apple shares while just one recommended selling, according to Thomson Reuters data. Currently, no analysts recommend selling, while 38 recommend buying.

A new iPhone with a smaller 4-inch screen will likely boost volumes by about 5 percent this year, an increase not yet incorporated into Wall Street's expectations, Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski wrote in a report on Monday.

Apple chip supplier Dialog Semiconductor on Tuesday forecast March-quarter revenue below analysts' expectations, but said it still expects single-digit growth for the year. That suggests the March quarter could mark the low-point in iPhone shipments, with demand for new models building later in the year, RBC analyst Amit Daryanani wrote in a research note.

Jeffrey Carbone, Senior Partner at Cornerstone Financial Partners, said Apple remains a staple holding at his firm but that he has recently turned his attention to Apple suppliers including Skyworks Solutions, which he believes is undervalued.

"We have a normal weighting on Apple, we like the company, but we think the supply chain could have greater potential," Carbone said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Apple to launch new iPhone, iPad in March: 9to5mac

Apple Inc. is on target to introduce its next iPhone and iPad models on March 15, and aims to start selling the devices in the same week, technology blog 9to5Mac reported, citing sources.

Apple, which will introduce a new 4-inch iPhone, dubbed the "iPhone 5se", and a new iPad Air at a launch event, is unlikely to take pre-orders for the new devices, the blog reported.

The technology giant has hit a trough in iPhone demand. The 0.4 percent rise in shipments in the fiscal first quarter was the slowest-ever increase in iPhone sales since the phone was launched in 2007.

The new 4-inch iPhone 5se is designed to spur iPhone hardware upgrades for customer seeking faster devices without upgrading to the far larger iPhone 6s and 6s Plus screen sizes.

Apple could not be immediately reached for comment.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com