Apple announces new gadgets

During its September hardware event, Apple unveiled a series of new products. Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley shares the details.

Video Transcript

- Let's talk about Apple. Dan Howley is joining us now, because we learned a lot about the gadgets coming our way this fall, but also Apple One, anywhere from $15 to $30 a month. What's in it for me, I guess, I would ask, if you want to do Apple One, Dan?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah. Basically Apple One is supposed to be almost the future of Apple, right? They want to go towards this kind of recurring revenue model, where you don't have to-- or they don't have to worry about how much iPhones they sell or how many iPhones they sell. They can then focus more on getting consumers in the door through those kinds of revenue models. And then that will naturally lead people to, over time, upgrade their iPhones. It's that stickiness factor that they're looking for.

And they're doing that with the accessories. If you have AirPods, you have an Apple watch, you're going to stick with Apple. That means upgrading your iPhone at some point. And that's the exact same thing here. If you have a bundle of services like that, that you're subscribed to, you become invested in those services and so you're going to continue to use Apple products down the line. So this is a big deal for them. I think it's a smart move.

And then, of course, we have the new watches that debuted yesterday as well, And Apple Fitness+, their kind of take on going after Peloton.

- Hey, Dan, let me ask you about the iPad, the new iPad Air. Doesn't get, maybe, as much attention as some of the other products, but it looks pretty sleek. How does it stack up against the competition, like any Microsoft products or just generally PC products?

DAN HOWLEY: I think as far as tablets go, you know, the iPad is really the leader. But I wouldn't consider Microsoft's Surface really a tablet, per se. It's more of a two-in-one computer because you can do everything that you would need to do on a computer on the Surface. And that's why I, personally, like it more for productivity than something like an iPad. The iPad is great for limited productivity and consumption. And if you want to do quick photo editing or if you want to do-- we can work in our content management system, our CMS, where we can edit articles. But if you really want to get into the nitty gritty, I would use something like a Surface.

But the Air really, now, is impressive because it's got that A14 bionic chip. And that's really what's going to go into the next iPhone, most likely. So we're seeing that chip ahead of time. And I think when you look at the design of that Air, you can look towards that kind of design going towards the next iPhone. And by the way, that new touch ID sensor that they have that's on the power button, I'm hopeful that Apple puts that in the next iPhone as well, so that if you're unlocking with a face mask, you can just tap your finger instead of having to type in your numbers.

- Hey Dan. I just want to ask you how, maybe, more of the subscription bundle and some of the reaction. You mentioned Peloton. They tweeted that they welcome friendly competition. It's in their DNA. And you have to wonder, though, just kind of given some of the scrutiny in the space, especially around anti-competitive behavior, a la the whole Epic Games issue, and then maybe some of the government scrutiny, are they kind of teeing themselves up for more of that here? Are we going to see more companies kind of weigh in and say, hey, these things aren't fair, they're anti-competitive, those sorts of things?

DAN HOWLEY: I think it's kind of a big issue along the lines of gaming and things in that kind of vein, right? That's why it's been such a problem for Epic. I think when it comes to something like a Peloton, you know, Apple's offering the service, but it's not necessarily going to be an issue for Peloton itself. Now there are services on there that do have to pay that 30% fee to Apple if you subscribe through the app store. So they may take issue, because this is another competitor that's going to be directly in their industry that doesn't have to pay that fee through iOS. But I think long term, it's not going to be an issue, as far as you think of Peloton and anti-trust.

But the other question is, will Apple buy Peloton down the line? Because we have a big set up here where it's high-end customers, Apple, usually high-end customers. It seems like a perfect marriage. But it seems to me that that's too large of an issue for them as far as the products themselves. They're massive devices that I don't necessarily think that Apple would want to invest in. I think they're more into things that they can control and they already have the designs for.

If you look at Beats, Beats is now part of Apple. It's gotten a lot of good stuff out of Apple, but they're still separate. It's not really that large device that you look at with a treadmill or a bike.