Analyst: Apple's WWDC likely to 'disappoint'
Given the rumors and high expectations, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster fears the World Wide Developers Conference that Apple (AAPL) is hosting next week in San Francisco could be a "slight disappointment" to investors.
In a note to clients issued early Thursday, Munster writes that he hasn't lost faith in Apple's long-term plan to drive iPhone sales by adding new models, lowering prices and entering new markets (e.g. China).
He's just worried that it's not going to happen the way The Street expects. Specifically:
- Apple is widely expected to unveil a new iPhone next week. Munster is cautious. "Regardless of whether or not new iPhones are announced at WWDC," he writes, "we continue to expect a mid-July launch of a family of iPhones."
- Many investors are looking for Apple to announce a $99 iPhone and a cheaper data plan. Munster thinks $149 is a more likely price point and puts the chances of AT&T (T) offering reduced data fees at about 25%.
- As for Steve Jobs, Munster is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. He doesn't believe Apple's CEO will take the stage on Monday, but he has faith that Jobs will return from his medical leave, as promised, before the end of June.
- And as for OS X Snow Leopard, billed as one of the highlights of this year's WWDC (along with the iPhone 3.0 software), Munster worries that the "near-final release" will have "limited wow-factor" and that the demo "may be disappointing."
In a separate note, Oppenheimer's Yair Reiner writes that he expects Apple to delay the announcement of new iPhones for a few weeks to work through channel inventory of old phones and to avoid "diluting" next week's focus on Snow Leopard and iPhone 3.0.
Munster is sticking with his price target of $180 a share. Reiner has raised his to $160 from $140.
Too much hype.Blog all you want. Its a DEV conference.SNow is an 'update' in Apple's eyes, not a RELEASE.There is a HUGE difference.The switch to Intel really set them and programmers around the world back as far as DEVELOPING for Apple.Microsoft adopted PowerPC,why couldn't have Apple stuck with it?I think the decision was driven by Windows users and nothing else.Now, I'm shoving anything BUT Apple's OS on my hardware.I'm still waiting on that update.
Rumors, rumors, and more rumors… all so if one is correct the rumor monger can say he/she/they got it right in their attempt at legitimacy.
All my selfish needs request for the new iPhone are:
1_ 32 GB model
2_ Better cam, 3.2MP or higher (a flash would be nice, but not mandatory)
3_ some type of video
Give those 3 and I am buying my first iPhone (with #1 being most important). Anything else would be just welcome icing on the cake. Seems like the 3.0 software upgrade will answer a lot of small issues.
Gee – Apple is going to do exactly what they said they will do: have a DEVELOPERS conference in which they will focus on the Snow Leopard and iPhone OS.
We already know a lot about each, and for the most part it is evolutionary, not revolutionary. In particular the Snow Lep stuff is a little geeky – but really important.
So let the fools have their day of fun trashing Apple. It will all come out in good time.
This is utter BS!
The only reason this guy is pessimistic is to get attention, and guess what… he did! From ME!
I will watch this analyst FAIL miserably with an ignorant prediction.
-Philip Han
So, it “may be disappointing.”
Guess what? It “may not be disappointing.”
Monkeys with darts, I say!
Eep, eep, eep. Watch out for flying poo.
"Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner writes that he expects Apple to delay the announcement of new iPhones for a few weeks"
I predict this prediction is rubbish. It would be hard to talk to developers at a DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE about developing for new hardware without actually, you know, TALKING ABOUT THAT NEW HARDWARE.
Gene Munster has become, for me, a sane and reliable voice in the Apple world even though he looks like a frat boy.
I've gone to every WWDC for the past three years and the events never dissappoint. But I'm not an investor, I'm a power user and a high end Systems Admin.
If I were an investor I'd look at Apple's performance over the past two years, empty my wallet and go home smiling.
Then again, I don't own a home either.
TheMacDweeb
What I expect (or at least want!) to see in the new crop of iPhones is one without an attached data plan at all- essentially an iPod touch with basic voice cell phone capabilities.
Of course, it would have the ability to do texting, send photos, etc, like any other cell phone these days, just without the 3G and the expensive required data plan.
These could sell like hotcakes…and I think they will.
I'm a long-term Apple investor and I won't be disappointed with minor upgrades to the iPhone. Apple is building highly usable devices targeted to a lot of non-tech type buyers and users. As long as the features the iPhone has are easy to use for these type of people, that's more than satisfactory. Trying to impress tech-heads are a waste of time and effort. They are easily jaded and are daily looking for some wonderful new feature. That's not how the world operates.
If Snow Leopard runs on current Macs faster than Leopard does and is stable, that's a good improvement. So, Leopard doesn't add 100 new features, so what. Who the hell really needs a bloated and sluggish OS?
Because some bloggers start adding all sorts of rumored crap to Apple products, the news media starts getting all excited. Then when the product doesn't have every rumored feature, they become disappointed. I've gone through this enough times to know the reality can't possibly meet the hype. The news media really should think about what it takes to run a profitable business.
The iPhone is not a ultra high-tech piece of hardware. It's really rather standard hardware with a few tweaks to make things easier for a user. That's why the iPhone is fun to use. Too bad for the disappointed few. Apple has got to keep those profits rolling in. They have my blessing.
Yes, these events tend to lead to disappointment as expectations are fueled by 'Apple fantasies' that feed on each other in the preceding weeks to the event. It ends up that what is announced in anti-climatic and the wild hopes for an awesome new feature never get fulfilled. I think many of the rumors are fed by ideas that are actually in the labs, but are in reality far out in the future as opposed to what is about to be released.
Apple is a company that took some pretty big risks and they paid off. Apple enthusiasts are, by and large, expecting too much — having gotten caught up in the hype of some of those huge announcements (like the switch from Motorola to Intel CPUs across the entire product line).
Apple is much loved for their willingness to innovate and take chances, but they're only going to take CALCULATED risks. It'd be foolish for them to make drastic changes every single time a developer conference comes along, just for the sake of "wowing" people.
When you have a winning product that's still in the "growth" stage, you want to make incremental improvements. It's not time to dump millions in R&D for a total makeover, when people are still buying the model you have in droves. That's why the iPod saw relatively minor changes for the first 4 revisions. Why mess with success?