Apple Stock Hits All-Time High amid WWDC: Key Takeaways

Apple stock (NYSE: AAPL) hit its all-time high of $184.36 yesterday which is slightly ahead of the previous all-time high of $182.94 that it hit in January 2022. Here are the key takeaways from the WWDC.

Apple announced its new AR headset Vision Pro which it would launch early next year at a price of $3,499. The company’s CEO Tim Cook said, “It’s the first Apple product you look through, and not at.”

Apple launches new AR headset

The product would compete against the Meta Quest headset even as like other Apple products the Vision Pro is priced above the competing set of products.

Notably, in March Meta lowered the price of its Quest Pro year by $500 to $999. It also cut the price of VR headsets with 256 gigabytes from $499 to $429.

While Mark Zuckerburg said that the price cut would get “more people can get into VR” – markets saw it as a sign of sagging demand.

Incidentally, the Reality Labs segment which is Meta’s metaverse business and also sells the headsets is battling with sagging revenues and soaring losses. Last year the business lost $13.7 billion and looks set to lose billions of dollars this year also.

Despite criticism from many stockholders, Zuckerburg said that Meta would not cut back on Metaverse investments.

Cook says Vision Pro is a “revolutionary product”

Cook said that Vision Pro is “a revolutionary new product” which can shift “the way we look at technology and the role it plays in our lives.”

Incidentally, it is the first new product from Apple in a decade and Cook acknowledged “This is a day that’s been years in the making.” He added, “Blending digital content with the real world can unlock experiences like nothing we’ve ever seen.”

Apple partners with Disney

Apple has also partnered with Disney for the headset and Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said in a recorded video “We’re constantly in search of new ways to entertain, inform and inspire our fans.” Iger also echoed Cook’s views and termed Vision Pro a “revolutionary platform.”

Unity Software stock soared on AAPL partnership

Apple is also partnering with Unity Software for Vision Pro. The stock soared over 25% on the news which is the biggest single-day rise since the company’s 2020 IPO.

A Unity spokesperson told CNBC “We’re excited to deliver Unity’s powerful and familiar real-time 3D tools and capabilities to Apple Vision Pro, so our huge community of passionate developers can bring new and existing Unity-created apps and games to this exciting new spatial computing platform.”

They added, “With visionOS and Unity’s PolySpatial technology, we can’t wait to see the new apps and games Unity developers will create for Vision Pro!”

Apple is building an ecosystem for apps for Vision Pro

Apple is working with developers to bring the existing iPhone apps to Vision Pro. Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of worldwide developer relations, said during Apple’s keynote said, “We know there is a community of developers who have been building incredible 3D apps for years.”

Prescott added, “Today, we are excited to share that we’ve been working with Unity to bring those apps to Vision Pro, so popular Unity-based games and apps can gain full access to VisionOS features such as Passthrough, high-resolution rendering and native gestures.”

Intel stock crashes as AAPL says it would use its own chips

Intel, which is anyways facing increased competition from AMD and Intel received another jolt when Apple announced that it would use its own chips in the 7,000 Mac Pro. The computer would start at $6,999 and would have 192 GM memory.

Apple also announced the 15-inch MacBook Air which is the world’s thinnest laptop at just 11.5 mm and weight of only 3.3 pounds.

The product starts at $1,299 and boasts of 18-hour battery life.

Notably, the PC industry is witnessing a severe downtrend and global PC sales fell 29% in Q1 2023. Mac was the worst performer among major brands with sales falling 40%. Apple’s PC market share fell to 7.2% as a result.

That said, when it comes to smartphones, iPhones outperformed the wider smartphone shipments with sales essentially similar to the corresponding quarter in 2022 despite a 14% fall in overall industry shipments.

Apple announced iOS 17

As expected Apple announced the iOS 17 and revealed some of the changes that would come to the next iPhone scheduled to be launched later this year.

The previous versions auto-corrected smear words when typing on the iPhone keyboard. The company announced a new autocorrect feature that would make using cuss words easier.

During his keynote address Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior VP of Software Engineering said, “And in those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it too.”

The company would also add live transcription to voicemail which Federighi said would help the customer “pick up the call to talk to them right then and there.”

Furthermore, Apple announced that FaceTime is coming to Apple TV also. It also said that customers would be able to find the lost remote using FindMy if they have the newer Siri remote.

AAPL adds new features to the health app

Apple also announced new features to the health app and added functionality to log a user’s state of mind.

Cook sees healthcare as a big growth area for Apple and previously said that healthcare would be the company’s “biggest gift to humanity.”

Other tech companies like Amazon and Alphabet are also betting on healthcare as a key growth area.