Connect with us

Published

on

In this article

Tim Cook
Source: Apple

Apple is holding its annual iPhone event on Tuesday, the company’s seventh virtual launch in a row due to the ongoing pandemic. The company is expected to introduce new iPhones and updates to its AirPods and Apple Watch, according to analysts.

Apple’s hype-filled fall launches are a signature quirk of the company. They garner worldwide media attention, millions of viewers on YouTube and Apple’s website, and set the stage for a holiday season marketing blitz when Apple’s sales are the highest.

All of Apple’s product segments have been on a tear this year as people continue to work from home. Last quarter, iPhone revenue was up 50% year-over-year, Mac revenue was up 16% year-over-year and iPad revenue was up 12% year-over-year. Its “other products,” business which includes devices like watches and AirPods, was up 40% year-over-year. Apple can keep the momentum going with a fresh slate of new products ahead of the holidays.

Last year, due to Covid, Apple revealed its new watches in September and then followed that event with an October iPhone 12 event. The iPhone 12 introduced an all-new design and 5G.

New iPads and MacBooks Pro laptops are due for an update this fall, too. It’s unclear whether Apple will pack all of its fall launches into one release event or if it will spread them out over multiple streaming events as it did last fall.

Here’s what Apple could launch on Tuesday.

iPhone

iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Todd Haselton | CNBC

Apple’s most important product is the iPhone, accounting for half of Apple’s 2020 sales. The company has announced new models every September since 2012, until last year when iPhones were revealed in October.

In 2020, Apple released four iPhone models: a smaller $599 iPhone 12 mini, the $829 iPhone 12, the higher-end $999 iPhone 12 Pro and the $1,2099 iPhone 12 Pro Max. All of the iPhone 12s came with 5G connectivity and a new, more squared-off design.

Expect this year’s lineup to be similar to last year’s with the same screen sizes and prices. Research from TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, a leading Apple analyst, suggests the big change this year could be a smaller notch cutout at the top of the iPhone’s screen, which holds the device’s facial recognition cameras. The size of the notch has remained the same since it was introduced in 2017.

The new iPhones could also have bigger batteries and a slightly heavier weight thanks to a new internal-space-saving design, according to Kuo. In previous years, new iPhones have come with camera and processor upgrades, and that’s almost certain to happen this year, according to Kuo.

We don’t know yet what Apple will call the new iPhones. Apple has named some previous devices “S” devices, which signify that they mainly have internal changes, which would fit in with this year’s expectations. That means it could be called the iPhone 12s, or it could be named the iPhone 13 if Apple decides the changes are enough to warrant it. We don’t know yet.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch Series 6 in blue
Todd Haselton | CNBC

Apple has released new Apple Watch models every September since 2016. It’s a key product in Apple’s wearables business, which accounted for 11% of Apple’s 2020 sales.

Last year, Apple introduced the high-end Series 6 and the mid-range Apple Watch SE. This year’s high-end Apple Watch is likely called the Apple Watch Series 7. Kuo predicted last year that the 2021 models would be a “significant form factor design change.”

The design will also include a slight increase in screen size, according to Bloomberg News, which would be equivalent to 16% more pixels on the watch’s display. Bloomberg said Apple will introduce new watch faces to take advantage of the larger screens, including one that would allow a user to see all 24 time zones simultaneously.

Some Apple Watch models may be in short supply due to production issues. Nikkei Asia said this month Apple delayed manufacturing because of assembly challenges. The report also suggested Apple could add blood-pressure sensing this year, but The Wall Street Journal said and Bloomberg have said the feature won’t come this year. Apple declined to comment on Watch production.

In past years, when Apple has had issues producing millions of devices ahead of a launch, it delayed the release date by weeks or months after the launch presentation. In 2017, for example, it announced the iPhone X in September but didn’t ship it until November.

AirPods

A man shows AirPods Pro at an Apple store on East Nanjing Road on October 30, 2019 in Shanghai, China. Apple’s new AirPods Pro with active noise cancellation are on sale on October 30 in China.
Wang Gang | VCG | Getty Images

AirPods are a key component of Apple’s wearables business, which accounted for over $30 billion in annual revenue in 2020, a 25% increase over the year before.

Although the product is growing in importance to Apple, the company hasn’t launched new AirPods since October 2019 when it introduced the higher-end AirPods Pro with a new design and noise canceling. The most recent regular $159 AirPods, without noise canceling, were announced in March 2019.

In a note to investors over the weekend, Kuo said Apple will launch new AirPods 3. He said Apple may continue to sell the current AirPods at a lower price. The re-design will likely make the AirPods look more like AirPods Pro, with a wider case and shorter stems, according to Bloomberg.

iPad

The 5th generation iPad mini
Todd Haselton | CNBC

If Apple announces new iPads, it will emphasize how important the product has become for the company as the Covid-19 pandemic forced people to work and learn from home and driving a boost in computer sales.

In the three quarters reported so far in Apple’s fiscal 2021, the company has reported $23.6 billion of iPads revenue, over a 39% increase from the same period last year.

Apple last updated the iPad Air, a mid-range option, with an edge-to-edge screen in September 2020. Apple’s also updated the chip in its least expensive iPad, a $329 tablet which it simply calls iPad, at the same event. Those are due for a refresh this fall, though it’s unclear if that will happen on Tuesday or at a second event. But the iPad Mini, last refreshed in March 2019, is most overdue for a refresh.

The iPad Mini could be getting a redesign by the end of the year to make it look more like its siblings, according to Bloomberg. The report said it won’t have a home button and will have a more square design like Apple’s iPad Air and Pro. That means it could have a fingerprint reader in the power button like the iPad Air, or Face ID like the iPad Pro.

Everything else

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, speaks during an Apple Event on April 20th, 2021.
Source: Apple Inc.

This is a product event, so don’t expect any commentary from Tim Cook on recent controversies including its plan to scan iCloud uploads for illegal material, the recent mixed decision in the App Store lawsuit against Epic Games, or thoughts on the company’s decision to delay a return to in-office work until next year.

However, Apple sometimes uses its iPhone launches to highlight non-product projects the company is working on, such as its efforts to become carbon neutral across its supply chain in the next 10 years.

If Apple talks about its climate efforts, expect VP Lisa Jackson to address the audience. Past events also have included musical guests or celebrity appearances.

Apple sometimes releases new services at fall launches, such as Apple One, its bundle of subscription services, which launched last year. But the big update to iOS is announced in June, at the company’s developer conference, and is typically released to everyone in the fall.

There’s another wildcard. Apple’s biggest, fastest MacBook Pro laptop, the 16-inch model, hasn’t been updated since November 2019, and still sports Intel processors even as the company moves to its own chips in laptops and desktops.

However, in the past decade, Apple hasn’t launched new Mac computers at the same event as new iPhones. There may be a separate event in October or November if new Macs are in the fall pipeline.

Continue Reading

Technology

AppLovin and Robinhood added to S&P 500

Published

on

By

AppLovin and Robinhood added to S&P 500

Robinhood finally wins spot in S&P 500

Shares of advertising technology company AppLovin and stock trading app Robinhood Markets each jumped about 7% in extended trading on Friday after S&P Global said the two will join the S&P 500 index.

The changes will go into effect before the beginning of trading on Sept. 22, S&P Global announced in a statement. AppLovin will replace MarketAxess Holdings, while Robinhood will take the place of Caesars Entertainment.

In March, short-seller Fuzzy Panda Research advised the committee for the large-cap U.S. index to keep AppLovin from becoming a constituent. AppLovin shares dropped 15% in December, when the committee picked Workday to join the S&P 500. Robinhood, for its part, saw shares slip 2% in June when it was excluded from a quarterly rebalancing of the index.

The S&P 500 already has a heavy concentration of large technology companies. Datadog and DoorDash entered earlier this year.

It’s normal for stocks to go up on news of their inclusion in a major index such as the S&P 500. Fund managers need to buy shares to reflect the updates.

Read more CNBC tech news

AppLovin and Robinhood both went public on Nasdaq in 2021.

Robinhood has been a favorite among retail investors who have bid up shares of meme stocks such as AMC Entertainment and GameStop.

AppLovin itself became a stock to watch, with shares gaining 278% in 2023 and over 700% in 2024. As of Friday’s close, the stock had gained only 51% so far in 2025. AppLovin’s software brings targeted ads to mobile apps and games.

Earlier this year, AppLovin offered to buy the U.S. TikTok business from China’s ByteDance. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly extended the deadline for a sale, most recently in June.

At Robinhood’s annual general meeting in June, a shareholder asked Vlad Tenev, the company’s co-founder and CEO, if there were plans for getting into the S&P 500.

“It’s a difficult thing to plan for,” Tenev said. “I think it’s one of those things that hopefully happens.”

He said he believed the company was eligible.

Shares of MarketAxess, which specializes in fixed-income trading, have fallen 17% year to date, while shares of Caesars, which runs hotels and casinos, are down 21%.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

AppLovin and Robinhood ytd stock chart.

Continue Reading

Technology

FTC commissioner questions status of Snap AI chatbot complaint: ‘People deserve answers’

Published

on

By

FTC commissioner questions status of Snap AI chatbot complaint: 'People deserve answers'

FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter on President Trump's latest attempt to fire her

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter raised questions on Friday about the status of an artificial intelligence chatbot complaint against Snap that the agency referred to the Department of Justice earlier this year.

In January, the FTC announced that it would refer a non-public complaint regarding allegations that Snap’s My AI chatbot posed potential “risks and harms” to young users and said it would refer the suit to the DOJ “in the public interest.”

“We don’t know what has happened to that complaint,” Slaughter said on CNBC’s ‘The Exchange.” “The public does not know what has happened to that complaint, and that’s the kind of thing that I think people deserve answers on.”

Snap’s My AI chatbot, which debuted in 2023, is powered by large language models from OpenAI and Google and has drawn scrutiny for problematic responses.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Snap declined to comment.

Slaugther’s comments came a day after President Donald Trump held a White House dinner with several tech executives, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Read more CNBC tech news

“The president is hosting Big Tech CEOs in the White House even as we’re reading about truly horrifying reports of chatbots engaging with small children,” she said.

Trump has been attempting to remove Slaughter from her FTC position, but earlier this week, U.S. appeals court allowed her to maintain her role.

On Thursday, the president asked the Supreme Court to allow him to fire her from the post.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, who was selected by Trump to lead the commission, publicly opposed the complaint against Snap in January, prior to succeeding Lina Khan at the helm.

At the time, he said he would “release a more detailed statement about this affront to the Constitution and the rule of law” if the DOJ were to eventually file a complaint.

WATCH: FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter on President Trump’s latest attempt to fire her.

Continue Reading

Technology

Google leads monster week for tech, pushing megacaps to combined $21 trillion in market cap

Published

on

By

Google leads monster week for tech, pushing megacaps to combined  trillion in market cap

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai meets with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at Google for Startups in Warsaw, Poland, on February 13, 2025.

Klaudia Radecka | Nurphoto | Getty Images

From the courtroom to the boardroom, it was a big week for tech investors.

The resolution of Google’s antitrust case led to sharp rallies for Alphabet and Apple. Broadcom shareholders cheered a new $10 billion customer. And Tesla’s stock was buoyed by a freshly proposed pay package for CEO Elon Musk.

Add it up, and the U.S. tech industry’s eight trillion-dollar companies gained a combined $420 billion in market cap this week, lifting their total value to $21 trillion, despite a slide in Nvidia shares.

Those companies now account for roughly 36% of the S&P 500, a proportion so great by historical standards that Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, told CNBC by email, “there are no comparisons.”

Read more CNBC tech news

There was a certain irony to this week’s gains.

Alphabet’s 9% jump on Wednesday was directly tied to the U.S. government effort to diminish the search giant’s market control, which was part of a years-long campaign to break up Big Tech. Since 2020, Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta have all been hit with antitrust allegations by the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission.

A year ago, Google lost to the DOJ, a result viewed by many as the most-significant antitrust decision for the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than two decades earlier. But in the remedies ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said Google won’t be forced to sell its Chrome browser despite its loss in court and instead handed down a more limited punishment, including a requirement to share search data with competitors.

The decision lifted Apple along with Alphabet, because the companies can stick with an arrangement that involves Google paying Apple billions of dollars per year to be the default search engine on iPhones. Alphabet rose more than 10% for the week and Apple added 3.2%, helping boost the Nasdaq 1.1%.

Analysts at Wedbush Securities wrote in a note after the decision that the ruling “removed a huge overhang” on Google’s stock and a “black cloud worry” that hung over Apple. Further, they said it clears the path for the companies to pursue a bigger artificial intelligence deal involving Gemini, Google’s AI models.

“This now lays the groundwork for Apple to continue its deal and ultimately likely double down on more AI related partnerships with Google Gemini down the road,” the analysts wrote.

Mehta explained that a major factor in his decision was the emergence of generative AI, which has become a much more competitive market than traditional search and has dramatically changed the market dynamics.

New players like OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity have altered Google’s dominance, Mehta said, noting that generative AI technologies “may yet prove to be game changers.”

On Friday, Alphabet investors shrugged off a separate antitrust matter out of Europe. The company was hit with a 2.95-billion-euro ($3.45 billion) fine from European Union regulators for anti-competitive practices in its advertising technology business.

Broadcom pops

Broadcom shares spike briefly on Q4 beat

While OpenAI was an indirect catalyst for Google and Apple this week, it was more directly tied to the huge rally in Broadcom’s stock.

Following Broadcom’s better-than-expected earnings report on Thursday, CEO Hock Tan told analysts that his chipmaker had secured a $10 billion contract with a new customer, which would be the company’s fourth large AI client.

Several analysts said the new customer is OpenAI, and the Financial Times reported on a partnership between the two companies.

Broadcom is the newest entrant into the trillion-dollar club, thanks to the company’s custom chips for AI, already used by Google, Meta and TikTok parent ByteDance. With Its 13% jump this week, the stock is now up 120% in the past year, lifting Broadcom’s market cap to around $1.6 trillion.

“The company is firing on all cylinders with clear line of sight for growth supported by significant backlog,” analysts at Barclays wrote in a note, maintaining their buy recommendation and lifting their price target on the stock.

For the other giant AI chipmaker, the past week wasn’t so good.

Nvidia shares fell more than 4% in the holiday-shortened week, the worst performance among the megacaps. There was no apparent negative news for Nvidia, but the stock has now dropped for four consecutive weeks.

Still, Nvidia remains the largest company by market cap, valued at over $4 trillion, with its stock up 56% in the past 12 months.

Microsoft also fell this week and is on an extended slide, dropping for five straight weeks. Shares are still up 21% over the last 12 months.

On the flipside, Tesla has been the laggard in the group. Shares of the electric vehicle maker are down 13% this year due to a multi-quarter sales slump that reflects rising competition from lower-cost Chinese manufacturers and an aging lineup of EVs.

But Tesla shares climbed 5% this week, sparked mostly by gains on Friday after the company said it wants investors to approve a pay plan for Musk that could be worth up to almost $1 trillion.

The payouts, split into 12 tranches, would require Tesla to see significant value appreciation, starting with the first award that won’t kick in until the company almost doubles its market cap to $2 trillion.

Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin the plan was designed to keep Musk, the world’s richest person, “motivated and focused on delivering for the company.”

WATCH: Tesla board chair on Elon Musk’s pay plan

Tesla Chair Denholm: New pay plan designed to keep Musk motivated & focused on delivering for Tesla

Continue Reading

Trending