Apple Introduces New Products At Virtual Event

Apple unveiled its revamped iPad Pros and iMacs at the technology giant’s “Spring Loaded” virtual event on Tuesday. The new iPad Pros will come with an M1 chip designed by Apple that has an 8-core Central Processing Unit (CPU) design. The M1 chip will deliver 50% faster performance than A12Z Bionic and 40% faster Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) performance.

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Apple’s (AAPL) SVP of Worldwide Marketing, Greg Joswiak, said, “The revolutionary M1 chip has been a breakthrough for the Mac, and we’re incredibly excited to bring it to iPad Pro.”

Apple will price the new iPad Pro starting at $799. It will be available to order by the end of this month and in Apple Stores by the second half of May.

The company also introduced a slimmed down version of the iMac which is similarly enabled by the M1 chip and is just 11.5 mm thin. The company will price the iMac with 7-core GPU starting from $1,299 and the new iMac with 8-core GPU starting at $1,499.

Additionally, Apple introduced the AirTag, an elegant accessory that once attached to an item, helps to keep track of and find things that generally get misplaced like keys and handbags. AirTags will be priced at $29 and $99 for packs of one and four, respectively, and will be available by the end of this month. AirTag will work with Apple’s Find My app and will tap into the company’s Find My network to find the lost or misplaced items while keeping location data private with end-to-end encryption. (See Apple stock analysis on TipRanks)

The company also unveiled Apple Podcasts Subscriptions that will be available from May where listeners in 170 countries can sign up for premium subscriptions to Apple Podcasts. Listeners will receive curated content and will gain access to early or exclusive ad-free podcasts. The pricing for premium podcasts will be decided by podcasts creators with monthly or annual billing options available.

Following Apple’s virtual event, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives reiterated a Buy and a price target of $175 on the stock. Ives said in a note to investors, “While chip shortages linger, we believe Apple has a yellow brick road of growth ahead led by its iPhone supercycle and new product launches (today’s event adds to the lineup) across its entire hardware ecosystem.”

Overall, the Street is bullish on the stock with a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 20 Buys, 4 Holds, and 1 Sell. The average analyst price target of $153.65 implies 15.4% upside potential from current levels.