At its annual marketing event on Wednesday, Apple unveiled its iPhone 14 with satellite phone capabilities that can be used in emergency situations. But sharing the focus is the following product that has slowly grown in strength: the Apple Watch.
Wearables, which were first released in 2015, still make up a small portion of the company’s revenue. But it helped Apple build a fortress around the iPhone, deepening customer loyalty to the company’s most important device.
On Wednesday, Apple extended this strategy with a series of new watches. It has unveiled a new fitness-focused smartwatch aimed at triathletes, distance runners and country enthusiasts.
The Apple Watch Ultra, a solid $800 model with a larger screen and improved durability, pushes the company into a corner of the Garmin-dominated smartwatch market, with roughly $2.6 billion in sales la for endurance sports competitors.
The new watch features an “action” button to make it easier to use while wearing gloves, a larger speaker for taking calls in windy conditions, and a larger battery that provides 36 hours on a single charge. Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, said the watch was “designed to push boundaries”.
Additionally, Apple has released an update to its traditional watch, the Series 8, cost 400 dollars. It includes a sensor to monitor changes in body temperature, which can help predict menstrual cycles and ovulation for women trying to get pregnant. It also has a feature called “collision detection,” which can identify when an Apple Watch wearer has been in a car accident and notify family and emergency services.
Apple also reduced the price of its entry-level watch, the Apple Watch SE, launching in 2020 for $280. The new version, which costs $250 and lacks some of the features found on more expensive models, is designed to make the device more accessible, especially for families. More and more parents buy Apple Watch for their children as a precursor to smartphones to stay in touch and track their location, according to research data from investment group Piper Sandler.
Apple has a strong lead in smartwatch sales, with nearly 51% market share, ahead of Samsung and Huawei, which have 19% and 5% respectively. Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of device research at IDC, a market research firm, said the lower-priced Apple Watch Ultra and Apple Watch SE would help Apple increase the revenue of a revenue-generating business. estimated at $17 billion last year.
The company combined the release of its smartwatch with an update to its line of wireless headphones, called AirPods. The company introduced the new generation of the AirPods Pro line, priced at $250, with new features, including the ability to increase and decrease the volume with just a swipe of a finger. It also offers improved noise cancellation to better reduce high-resolution noise like construction, the company says.
For Apple, smartwatches and AirPods are less important than the iPhone, which accounts for more than half of the company’s total sales. But devices that require the iPhone to function optimally have helped Apple increase customer loyalty. They also offer a lower-cost alternative to the iPhone, which can help the company maintain sales momentum in a slowing economy.
“The more products you have from Apple, the less likely it is to leave Apple for another company,” said Jeronimo. “Your whole life becomes part of a single ecosystem.”
Apple introduced products at the Steve Jobs Theater on its campus in Cupertino, California, hosting a product event there for the first time since 2019. The venue was packed with journalists. and staff, who celebrated the return to normal with loud cheers like Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, took to the stage to introduce a pre-recorded commercial detailing new products. The company’s newest product.
Among them is the iPhone 14, a phone with an introductory price of $800. Phones have last year’s processors, which helps keep Apple’s component costs down. It also has improved front and rear cameras with larger sensors to take clearer pictures in low light.
It adds satellite phone features, giving people the ability to connect to emergency services in rural and remote environments so they can get help if they get lost. while hiking or encountering some other dire situation.
Apple has saved the biggest design changes for the iPhone 14 Pro, which costs $999, which is the same as last year’s flagship phone. The new phone has a smaller notch for the Face ID system, an “always-on” display to display clock-like information without unlocking the phone, and a thinner black border around the screen.
Unlike the lower-priced iPhone 14, the Pro model has a new processor, the A16, that supports an improved camera with a larger sensor for improved photos. It also supports new machine learning algorithms to enhance image detail and sharpness.
Despite having some of the highest price tags in the smartphone market, the iPhone has enjoyed a business resurgence during the pandemic. In the last fiscal year, Apple posted a record $192 billion in revenue from the iPhone alone, a 14-year-old device that has become known for incremental improvements rather than revolutionary innovations.
The iPhone 14 may be more notable for where it was made than for its new features. This year, for the first time, the company will assemble some of its flagship iPhone 14 The phone launched in India, part of a strategy to reduce its reliance on China, where the majority of its products are manufactured.
Its supply chain diversification efforts have become more urgent this year amid pandemic-induced disruptions in China and escalating geopolitical tensions over Taiwan’s status.
Bob O’Donnell, founder of Technalysis Research, said: “We’re in the post-production phase of the iPhone. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between generations of devices.”
