It seemed to last an eternity but an hour after unveiling new products, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), the world’s largest publicly-listed company, finally saw its shares rise.
Not that it was exactly a solid close on Wednesday. Up 0.6% at $108.36
But having slid into negative territory early on, Apple regained composure in the final hour of New York trading.
Apple officially introduced the iPhone 7 and updated Apple Watch Series 2 on Wednesday and said it will take pre-orders from Sept 9. Both products become available Sept 16.
The Cupertino, California-based company also announced that it is partnering with Nike to launch the Apple Watch Nike+. The new Apple-branded model will be available starting Sept. 16, but the $649 Nike version will roll out in October.
Shortly after the CEO Tim Cook took the stage, Apple revealed new iPhone features on Twitter, including new cameras, water resistance, stereo speakers and longer battery life. The tweets were promptly deleted.
By specifics, the 32GB iPhone 7 will retail for $649, the same starting price as the iPhone 6. Customers will have to shell out $769 for a 32GB iPhone 7 Plus, the phablet variety of the phone.
The tech giant also eliminated the headphone jack on the iPhone 7. The new devices will be shipped with EarPod headphones – which the company claims works better than Bluetooth - and a Lightning to 3.5-millimeter headphone jack adapter, which the company hopes will help mitigate backlash over the new design feature.
The iPhone 7 may also have one of the most impressive phone cameras to hit the market yet. As expected, the iPhone 7 Plus will feature not one but two rear cameras.
Apple said that a new software feature allows users to see a live preview with shallow depth of field. Photos taken on the iPhone 7 Plus will be able to achieve a very sharp foreground and blurry background, for example.
One area that the company has put aside gimmicks is the storage size of the new devices. And this is a critical benefit.
With 256 gigabytes of storage for its most powerful version, Apple's new iPhone has 64 times the amount of space as the company's original smartphone nine years ago.
Increased storage is a critical piece in convincing consumers to upgrade, as anyone with a 12GB iPhone 5 can attest. Few things are more annoying than being told that you don't have room for another app or photo, even after pushing as much data as possible to iCloud or Dropbox.