A leading Apple analyst offers his Worldwide Developers Conference checklist
The developers conference that begins June 7 is likely to be “a non-event” for Apple’s (AAPL) share price, according to Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, with few surprises.
But in the note to clients he issued Wednesday he adds that the new iPhone he expects Steve Jobs to introduce will likely drive unit sales beyond Wall Street’s targets — “providing a positive catalyst for shares of AAPL in the coming months.”
His WWDC checklist:
- New iPhone: Likely. This is the squared-off device we’ve seen in leaked videos, with a front-facing camera for video conferencing, a thinner design, an improved rear camera, better battery life and higher capacity (32GB/64GB). He doesn’t expect it to go on sale (at the current $199/$299 price points) until mid to late June. Like other analysts, he expects the iPhone 3G to go out of production and the price of the iPhone 3GS to drop to $99.
- New iPhone At Verizon (VZ): Unlikely. He expects Apple to stick with AT&T (T) for now.
- iPad Sales Update: Possible. By June 7, it will have been five weeks since Apple announced that it took four weeks to sell its first 1 million iPads. Its likely Jobs will announce another number, but perhaps one that’s not quite as round.
- New Mac OS Demo: Possible. Given that this is a developers conference, a sneek peek at the next version of Mac OS X (10.7) would not be out of order. Software is a key differentiator for Apple, Munster notes, but lately the company hasn’t been putting as much effort into the Mac OS as it has the iPhone OS.
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[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
