Techland Has More Than Just iPhones on Its Mind

Is there anything to discuss in techland this morning other than the Apple iPhone launch in Cupertino, Calif.?

Well, sure. The CEO of Social Finance, Mike Cagney, is stepping down. I had lunch with him four months ago, and he appeared onstage at Brainstorm Tech in July. SoFi, as it’s known, seemed to be the one big “fintech” company that hadn’t had any major hiccups. Now it has as Cagney’s misbehavior toward women at the company seems to have caught up with him.

And one of New York’s longest-serving technology analysts, Toni Sacconaghi, issued a report Monday on the future of electric vehicles. Sacconaghi, who long has covered the likes of Apple, HP, Dell and so on, has begun covering Tesla (TSLA). It is, after all, the ultimate hardware company. He predicts electric vehicles (EVs) “will represent 60% of the automotive market unit sales by 2050.” He hedged his prediction, however. He thinks it is likely he’s being too conservative.

But I digress. For all the knowing criticism of Apple (AAPL) having lost its innovation mojo, the tech world will stop what it’s doing and watch the proceedings from the Steve Jobs Theater Tuesday morning when Apple unveils new phones, watches, TV-watching devices, and more.

The top topic of conversation Monday was whether consumers would buy a $1,000 phone. The question missed the point. Of course consumers will. The question is how many. And my guess is that Apple thinks not that many will need to initially for the product to be a hit. Diehards will have to have it. The rest of us will wait until the glitches are worked out and the price comes down.

I will be in Cupertino this morning tweeting, talking, commentating and reporting. Tomorrow I’ll summarize.