Max Weinbach on Apple iPhone Duo, What it Means for AAPL Growth

0:00Apple introduced updates and some new. It's long anticipated foldable iPhone yesterday at its first event hosted by New CEO John turn. It's for more reaction. We want to welcome in Max Weinbeck tech analyst creative strategies. Max, thank you so much for joining us this morning. All right. So the foldable phone is here from Apple. What do you think? I think it is far more than I was expecting. I live a little bit of a chance to use it yesterday and it is probably one of the best foldables on the market. And it just it feels like Apple's bringing back this innovative spirit of just new products, new experiences, new devices. Okay, so new devices new and it does seem listen by even investor reaction. More than anticipated here. What's so special about it? Say compared to Samsung. I think the experience of actually using it's a little bit different when you feel the hardware. It feels different. Apple did a lot of unique little things with the display to make it feel a little bit closer to glass. They have.

1:03Well, the form factor similar the way they handle the software experience is far different. And it feels more put together a little bit more of taking the experience from the iPad to bring it into the iPhone duo. And you can really tell even in the, you know, brief about 10 or so minutes. I had to play with it. It is just a far better software experience. The display more or less gets rid of the visible crease, which is nice. They have new custom display layers to actually make that foldable. Sips display not feel like plastic. I'm not even sure if there is there's two layers of ultra thing glass, which I believe they have a pretty good partnership with corning on. It is hard to explain without holding it because it looks very similar, but it is a far more premium experience. So, okay, so premium experience you mentioned the glass that makes me worry about breaking it. And I know they say with these new devices, because I've got one of those latest iPhones, you don't need a case, but you know, it's you're like, oh, I got to get a case. I got to get a screen protector.

2:03But obviously you couldn't really do a screen protector because it's got to be able to fold the how, you know, what do you think about that? And any testing they did to, you know, test for its ability to survive drops. So, I've had about seven years worth of foldables from Samsung and all the other OEMs. I'm generally not too concerned about the inner display actually on most foldables. They tend to be really strong, believe it or not, for Apple they did two layers of ultra thing glass around the display panel itself. So, you don't really crack it. There's a layer of a polymer on top that they custom design that they said is 40% stiffer. So, it is plastic that you're going to touch, but you don't feel it because of the nanotextra coating on it. You don't really have to worry as much about breaking that inner display. They give it IP68 water industrial assistance. So, you don't really have to worry about dust and a hinge either. The real issue is going to be dropping something extremely heavy onto the display, which doesn't really happen.

3:04And then on the outside, you can't still put a case on it, but the newest iPhones, I have the 17 pro and iPhone Air as well. And those things seem extremely durable. I shockingly enough have dropped this thing many times and it's just been completely fine. Not even a scratch on it. No case on yours. You're a newest iPhone. Absolutely not. Yeah. I never really used a case. I don't know what they did with this new glass, but I think it's a ceramic coating on top has been extremely scratch and shadow resistant. Okay, so maybe I can lose my case and screen protector, but let's get back to the foldable phone, the price tag. It's starting essentially at $2,000. Who's this for? I think it's for the fans, the power users, the early adopters that really want a foldable. Now, the other part of it is foldables are extremely big and popular in Asia, parts of China. They do extremely well there in the US, not as much. That's actually more of a flip phone styles that those sort of middle razor and the Samsung Z Flip, but they do extremely well in China and Asia.

4:09And I think the US has been looking for something a little bit more interesting and this foldable, at least from the feedback I've seen on basically every social platform, talking to my friends that aren't really follow tech and the other creators and celebrities journalists here at Apple Park or yesterday at Apple Park. Everyone seemed a little bit more interested in this than the standard iPhone. So I think it's targeting a large market in Asia, but also there's interest in domestic market here in the US. I'm glad you mentioned the celebrity effect there because I saw a clip of I show speed there and it's so interesting. There's a different day and age where it's you have a mega online influencer as part of the celebrity factor for Apple. Now, is the idea that that's going to help push sales or get the information out to the ecosystem more? I think it's a little bit of that and also trying to push cultural awareness. But Apple has always been one of them. I think Tim Cook has said many times the fine line between like our culture and technology.

5:17And I'm assuming John Turner's here obviously is pushing that forward and continuing it. But I think Apple has just been the device of choice for a lot of these celebrities. I mean, we see them using in any photos in public. Beats was always a big brand for athletes as well, which is under Apple's portfolio. And we've always been there and you know, even outside of the stream for I just speed. I was seeing him posting videos and genuinely interested in using and checking them out and going to me. Marcus Brownlee was in the same room. Just there. I think a lot of these celebrities are just fans of Apple and the technology. And when Apple offers like, hey, you can bring you out. We can show you this. You're going to play with it and see it that it's kind of hard for a lot of them to say, no. And then Max, if you were to give a grade, let's say it's like a report card. This is back to school season. What grade would you give? Do you see John Turner's for this event?

6:32I would give him an easy. This was a great start. I the feeling I got was this was no different than any other Apple event. You swap turners in for Tim Cook, but it still felt like an Apple event. There wasn't a big difference. And I think that's what they need. What they did extremely well. And even in the AI era, John turns was starting out by trying to explain what the perfect AI device would be. And it's an iPhone. And he, right, I do need connectivity to screen battery life, cameras, sensors. It has all. So I think he did a great job. I think he explained it well. The products were really well received. They work well. I've enjoyed using the demos and a week through. And see going forward, how the actual sales do, but the five products, six products that they launched, I think they're going to need to do well. And it's a good first start. Good first event. And Max, real quick, are those the new AirPods you're wearing right now? No, but I do actually have them. I was using them a little bit last night. Those were interesting.

7:35It's actually lowered the price on all of them. Effectively, they brought down previously. They had two pairs of AirPods AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 ANC at 129 and 180 79. Now they brought down the ANC to the base pair and basically lowered the price by $30 and $50, which is kind of weird given expectations where everything gets more expensive. Okay, Max will leave it there for time. That's Max. Why I'm back tech analyst, creative strategy. It's good conversation.