Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., during the first day of in-store sales of Apple’s latest products at Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in New York, US, on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024.
Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple announced a new iPhone model on Wednesday that is priced lower than its main iPhone models, which usually come out in September.
The new iPhone is called iPhone 16e, and it will retail for $599 when it goes on sale later this month.
The new iPhone 16e doesn’t have a home button and fingerprint sensor, instead, it uses Apple’s FaceID scanner and modern design including a sensor notch at the top of the screen. It uses Apple’s A18 chip, which is also used in the main iPhone 16 models. The updated processor means that the iPhone 16e can run all the same apps and games that more expensive iPhones can run. It comes in black and white.
The phone also includes Apple’s first cellular modem, which it calls C1. iPhones have used Qualcomm modems for the past few years. It also has a single camera lens, versus as many as three on the most advanced iPhones.
Apple is releasing a new low-cost iPhone as sales have been mixed in recent quarters and the company seeks growth for its most important product category. For the December quarter, Apple’s overall iPhone sales were down 1% on an annual basis. Apple still sold more than $69 billion of phones in the period.
Low-end iPhones are important to Apple as it gets new customers into their ecosystem, and the new device supports Apple Intelligence, making it Apple’s least expensive new phone that can access features like image generation and notification summaries.
Apple’s current models are the iPhone 16, which starts at $799, and the iPhone 16 Pro, which starts at $999. Before Wednesday’s launch, only the iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 Pro models were the only phones with access to Apple Intelligence.
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Apple has released a less-expensive iPhone model to round out the bottom of its lineup since 2016. The iPhone SE, as it was called then, got further updates in 2020 and 2022. Generally, the iPhone SE reuses an older design than the newest iPhones, but Apple updates its components such as its processor so it can receive ongoing software updates.
After the old iPhone SE sells out, there won’t be any new iPhones with a fingerprint scanner. It was also less expensive than the iPhone 16e at $429.
The launch also marks a new approach to Apple’s famous product launches, which garner media attention around the world. Previously, Apple would reveal new products live and onstage, at a presentation on its campus in California. In 2020, Apple stopped inviting people to live launches and started screening marketing videos on its website and YouTube instead.
In recent years, Apple has started to quietly release new products through press releases, such as the new Macs it announced last September. It may be testing how much buzz it can get for one of these quieter launches. Last week, ahead of Wednesday’s launch, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a message on social media: “Get ready to meet the newest member of the family.”
Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ Magazine Style & Tech Dinner in Atherton, California, on March 15, 2023.
Kelly Sullivan | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki and New Mountain Capital have submitted a proposal to take the embattled genetic testing company private, according to a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wojcicki and New Mountain have offered to acquire all of 23andMe’s outstanding shares in cash for $2.53 per share, or an equity value of approximately $74.7 million. The company’s stock closed at $2.42 on Friday with a market cap of about $65 million.
The offer comes after a turbulent year for 23andMe, with the stock losing more than 80% of its value in 2024. In January, the company announced plans to explore strategic alternatives, which could include a sale of the company or its assets, a restructuring or a business combination.
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23andMe has a special committee of independent directors in place to evaluate potential paths forward. The company appointed three new independent directors to its board in October after all seven of its previous directors abruptly resigned the prior month. The special committee has to approve Wojcicki and New Mountain’s proposal.
“We believe that our Proposal provides compelling value and immediate liquidity to the Company’s public stockholders,” Wojcicki and Matthew Holt, managing director and president of private equity at New Mountain, wrote in a letter to the special committee on Thursday.
Wojcicki previously submitted a proposal to take the company private for 40 cents per share in July, but it was rejected by the special committee, in part because the members said it lacked committed financing and did not provide a premium to the closing price at the time.
Wojcicki and New Mountain are willing to provide secured debt financing to fund 23andMe’s operations through the transaction’s closing, the filing said. New Mountain is based in New York and has $55 billion of assets under management, according to its website.
Shares of Hims & Hers Health tumbled more than 23% on Friday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of semaglutide injection products has been resolved.
Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Those medications are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1s, and demand for the treatments has exploded in recent years. As a result, digital health companies such as Hims & Hers have been prescribing compounded semaglutide as an alternative for patients who are navigating volatile supply hurdles and insurance obstacles.
Compounded drugs are custom-made alternatives to brand-name drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs, and compounders are allowed to produce them when brand-name treatments are in shortage. The FDA doesn’t review the safety and efficacy of compounded products.
Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide to patients in May, and it owns compounding pharmacies that produce the medications.
Compounded medications are typically much cheaper than their branded counterparts. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for less than $200 per month, while Ozempic and Wegovy both cost around $1,000 per month without insurance.
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The FDA said Friday that it will start taking action against compounders for violations in the next 60 to 90 days, depending on the type of facility, in order to “avoid unnecessary disruption to patient treatment.”
“Now that the FDA has determined the drug shortage for semaglutide has been resolved, we will continue to offer access to personalized treatments as allowed by law to meet patient needs,” Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum posted Friday on X. “We’re also closely monitoring potential future shortages, as Novo Nordisk stated two weeks ago that it would continue to have ‘capacity limitations’ and ‘expected continued periodic supply constraints and related drug shortage notifications.'”
Him & Hers’ weight loss offerings have been a massive hit with investors. Shares of the company climbed more than 200% last year, and the stock is already up more than 100% this year despite Friday’s move.
Even before it added compounded GLP-1s to its portfolio, the company said in its 2023 fourth-quarter earnings call that it expects its weight loss program to bring in more than $100 million in revenue by the end of 2025.
Despite the turbulent regulatory landscape, Hims & Hers has showed no signs of slowing down.
On Friday, the company announced it has acquired a U.S.-based peptide facility that will “further verticalize the company’s long-term ability to deliver personalized medications.” Hims & Hers will explore advances across metabolic optimization, recovery science, biological resistances, cognitive performance and preventative health through the acquisition, the company said.
That move comes just days after Hims & Hers also bought Trybe Labs, the New Jersey-based at-home lab testing facility. Trybe Labs will allow Hims & Hers to perform at-home blood draws and more comprehensive pretreatment testing.
Hims & Hers did not disclose the terms of either deal.
Tesla models Y and 3 are displayed at a Tesla dealership in Corte Madera, California, on Dec. 20, 2024.
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Tesla is voluntarily recalling 376,241vehicles in the U.S. to correct an issue with failing power-assisted steering systems, according to records posted to the website of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In a safety recall report posted on the NHTSA website, Tesla said the recall includes Model 3 and Model Y vehicles that were manufactured for sale in the U.S. from Feb. 28, 2023, to October 11, 2023, and that were equipped with a certain older software release.
The records said printed circuit boards in the steering systems in affected vehicles could become overstressed, causing the power-assist steering to fail in some cases when a Tesla vehicle rolled to a stop and then accelerated.
When electronic power-assist steering systems fail in a Tesla, drivers need to exert more force to steer their cars, which can increase the risk of a collision.
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Tesla told the vehicle safety regulator that it was not aware of any crashes, injuries or deaths related to the power steering failures, and that it was offering an over-the-air software update as a remedy.
The recall follows an earlier related probe and voluntary recall in China concerning the same systems.
President Donald Trump has appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead a team that is slashing the federal government workforce, and in some cases, regulations and entire agencies. Those cuts already affected the NHTSA, an agency Musk has long seen as standing in the way of some of his ambitions at Tesla.
The regulator has been engaged in a yearslong investigation into safety defects in the systems that Tesla markets currently as its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) options. The features do not make Tesla cars into robotaxis. They require a human driver ready to steer or brake at any time.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Musk’s team has led mass firings at the NHTSA, reducing the agency’s workforce and capacity to investigate companies including Tesla by about 10%.