Watch BEFORE the Apple Event Today.

The bet is that consumers will keep paying up, both for the foldable and for pros with better battery life, camera improvements, and the new A20 Pro chip that is also expected tomorrow. >> Let's summarize what we've got here. So, iPhone 18 Pro Max expected, Pro and Pro Max expected. Though a lot of the newer phones are not expected to get upgraded until the spring because we'll focus on the upgrade and release to an iPhone Ultra. In fact, MacRumors says what not to expect tomorrow is a normal iPhone 18. Don't expect that. That's going to come out in the spring is the argument for the rumor mill. The iPhone Air 2, that super thin, super lightweight iPhone with one camera on the back versus the three previously, also not expecting a refresh on that until the spring where they launch the iPhone 18 and 18E expected. They're also considering adding a second camera to the iPhone Air to make it more appealing and to justify its $999 start price. Yeah, that single camera I know was a turn off for a lot of folks, especially since it already bulges out so much off the back because the actual device is so thin. Why not have a second one in there? The new Apple Watch SE 4 isn't expected until spring and the new Macs not expected as well at this event. The Home Hub as well as camera-equipped AirPods have been rumored, but the expectation is those are not going to be announced tomorrow along with no expectations for the Apple TV, HomePod mini, or iPad mini tomorrow. Instead, tomorrow's going to be all about that iPhone Ultra. And so, here are the rumors on the iPhone Ultra, just to put them together. This is expected to be about 10% smaller than a Mac mini or sorry, a Mac mini, than an iPad mini. Now, I like to actually just bring out the iPad Mini and then think about this compared to an iPhone Pro Max 17 just so we can kind of get a little bit of the scope of the comparison here. This also doesn't have Face ID, which really drives me nuts. I kind of hate using the the unlock sensor up here, mostly because I just feel like it's I don't know, you get stuff on your fingers more easily than your face looking different, you know? So, the touch sensor is much more frustrating. But, anyway, if I compare an iPhone uh Pro Max 17 to the iPad Mini here, uh you can definitely see there's a whole lot more uh that we have in terms of uh real estate. And I think that's what they're going for here is to make this more of a potentially readable device that you could unfold if you have the uh uh iPhone Ultra. Now, this is probably too big still, so you probably want to shrink this about 10% to get to what we think the iPhone Ultra size will be, but it just gives you a little bit of a comparison here. Uh we're expecting this to come with the Apple A20 chip on the 2-nanometer node of production. The uh iPad Mini is an 8.1-in screen, whereas the Fold is expecting a a 7.7 to 7.8-in screen. That's when it's unfolded and opened up. And maybe the biggest battery to be in an iPhone, though it's expected to be two batteries, some in each side. The iPhone Pro Max 18 is expected to get a battery upgrade as well from about just over 5,000 milliamps to potentially all the way up to 5,500 milliamps. Should be about a 10% boost and might only get beaten by the iPhone Ultra. So, the iPhone Ultra may lose its telephoto lens. Uh probably somewhat reasonable for uh you know, a sort of wider, if you will, clunkier device compared to something maybe more easy to handle for telephoto operations anyway, like this. It's going to be a little easier to hold, I feel like, than more like an iPad style device, which was kind of critical if you're taking long-range shots anyway. Uh although personally, I find I don't use my telephoto lens that much. Generally, it's the wide-angle lens and and your sort of normal photo that's going to drive 95% of your normal everyday photography. Pricing for the Ultra is expected to come in at a starting price of 1,900 to 2,400. I think it's going to be a 2,400. I think they're going to break 2,000 on the starting price because there are expected to be supply shortages for this. And the highest-end configuration might be as expensive as $3,000 uh when we get there. And this is just collecting information from where we've seen it from many different sources. Uh we do expect that iOS 27 will have uh sort of its own style of operating system that's a bit of a cross between iPad and iPhone. And there have already been leaks in the code base for fold state, determining is it unfolded or folded? Uh and then at what angle the hinge is actually bent at with angle degrees. So, both of these interesting leaks that have come up in multiple places now. Already getting rumors that initial stock is going to be pretty limited. I I think this is going to sell out. Like, I think there are a lot of people that are going in bearish on Apple saying, "Oh, you know, this is stupid. Who wants this?" And then it's going to sell out. And then it's like the Mac Ultra, not going to be available until January, and then people are going to have FOMO over it, whatever. Killing the Face ID is apparently to keep this device as thin as possible. I think what they're trying to accomplish is, like, how do you put an iPad Mini in your pocket? Well, you can't, because this isn't really going to fit in your pocket. I suppose if you had really big cargo shorts, you might fit it in. But then if you fold it, you don't want it to be so thick in your pants that, you know, it's meaningfully like you don't want it to be twice as large as the iPhone or the iPad mini now. So, you have to kind of minimize the um width or the thickness, we should say, uh of the folded component. Uh so, that way when you have two, it's not too clunky uh in your pocket. You don't really want it to feel like it's like a log compared to an iPhone. It's supposed to still feel like a phone. So, as a result, that's their excuse for getting rid of the TrueDepth hardware, the LiDAR hardware, the Face ID hardware, because that was unfortunately and apparently generating too much of a depth challenge. Unclear if MagSafe is going to be ultimately included. There've been rumors that they might not have MagSafe as part of this. Uh I know a lot of people use MagSafe accessories, cases. So, I know that would be a big loss to see MagSafe go away. I personally, even though I have a MagSafe case that I use on mine, I don't use MagSafe mostly because I feel like when I charge my phone in or I plug my phone in, it charges significantly faster when I plug it in versus using MagSafe. So, I've generally stayed away from that. But, people still like MagSafe for the wallets and accessories, the the handles essentially for your phone. So, I think it would be a loss if they didn't end up having MagSafe. And I think they'll end up including it mostly because their accessories market for this is huge. It's expected to come in silver white and dark blue. These are the expected colors based on leaks here from these uh camera covers that you can see. And uh let's see here. These are These are some other images of sort of mock-ups of how it might look relative to a phone. And so, you can see when you're holding that phone sideways, it actually gets significantly closer to that iPad mini size than uh you know, the iPhone does. So, if I kind of hold the iPad Mini, I mean, I guess yeah, you kind of have to hold it like this to sort of be able to compare the sizes. So, you can see that more on the vertical distance here, since this might end up being the same, the side over here. Uh, this is really what you're winning with the fold. And that seems to be roughly consistent with this, which that's not bad. I I personally would like that, mostly because I I spend a lot of time reading PDFs or even just for uh you know, I I don't think many people are reading books, uh, as much compared to, uh, news articles or, uh, PDFs these days. But, whatever kind of reading you're doing, it's certainly much more enjoyable than on a vertical scrolling phone. And I think getting away from the desire to vertically scroll with a vertical device is probably a good thing for productivity. So, I think there's some productivity arguments for this. Here's a mock-up that somebody printed of how the hinge could look based on some leaked specs. And that hinge is really expected to cinch this phone, lock it down into place to really kill the potential, uh, crease that you have here. So, a lot of talk about how, uh, the technology that's going into, uh, the glass and the crease, uh, will be the biggest show stopper of this event to kill the potential crease that you see. Uh, and that there will be metal plates beneath the display to maintain a completely flat surface when opened. So, in other words, under that hinge element, you would have some form of metal plating over here. So, like like almost like roof flashing, if you will, to have it essentially be completely flat, which is ironic because it's obviously not completely flat because of the camera. But, what, you know, whatever, that's that's the thesis they're going with there. Uh, so, we'll see. The closer you get to 8.1 inches on the internal display, cuz you'll also have the external display, which is neat. You know, the iPhone right now obviously you've only got a display on one side. You don't have a display on the other side. So, it'd be kind of interesting to have essentially a display on one side and then you're unfolded internal display. This 5.3 to 5.5 in this is significantly smaller though than the 6.9 that you get in the iPhone Pro. So, iPhone Pro Max versus Pro for example dimensions let's pull those up quickly so we can see those. Remember we're 8.1 on the iPad Mini. We are 6.3 on the iPhone Pro versus 6.9 on the Pro Max. So, 6.3 is still larger probably by around 20% than we're expecting with the external display for the fold. So, that'll be the showstopper. The branding is going to be around, you know, better multitasking or artificial intelligence on your device and whatever. Better readability, potentially largest battery of an iPhone ever or some of the other arguments here. And then of course yes, up to potentially $3,000 with a release in October or December. That's the fold. I'm personally very excited about that. They do think the Pro Max will also get rid of the orange color and replace that with this dark cherry, which is clearly the purplish style. The iPhone Pro and Pro Max are expecting more incremental updates. The biggest update here in addition to maybe 10% more battery and the 2 nanometer A20 chip where they're promising maybe 10 to 20% better efficiency or speed from GPU or compute, better memory or whatever. The big push here is going to be a smaller dynamic island. So, I think they have an image here. This is Macworld. There it is. Macworld got this image they embedded, which indicates that smaller potential Dynamic Island. So, I'd argue incremental improvement on the iPhone 18 Pro would still have those three cameras though. So, somebody who's more interested in videography is probably going to lean more towards the iPhone Pro versus the fold. I don't actually think it's really functional to film yourself on an iPad or even like filming your children, >> [laughter] >> you know, or worse, you take out like the Pro Max the the iPhone Pro model or the iPad Pro model. So, you're probably still for videographer types and creatives going to really have this be a a core driver. Although, who knows? It'll It'll be interesting to see how the folded version works because better camera controls are expected in both the ultra and the Pro Max. The camera controls on the Pro Max now are very finicky. Uh and so they're not very useful for changing aperture or brightness, and I would argue less than 1% of people actually use this stuff for camera controls right here. I just use it for opening the camera and taking a picture, hard pressing down on it, but controls after that don't even touch it. >> [laughter] >> That's me at least. Uh and then there is hope that the iPhone 4 uh sorry, the uh Apple Watch Ultra 4 gets released. This is the Apple Watch Ultra 3. And uh the current rumor mill is that we will end up getting the Ultra 4 tomorrow, and that the Ultra 4 could come with potentially a brighter screen along with a brighter screen for the Apple uh uh iPhone Pro Max 18. Uh but the Ultra 4, there's been a rumor that it could end up coming with touch ID. I personally never found it that annoying to unlock my watch cuz once you put it on, you put the pin in once and then you're done. So, I find that to be a little surprising, but maybe that could help with unlocking or verifying, you know, in a more secure manner. Either having a more secure password on your watch, since you're typically just using digits on the watch. Uh and therefore, you know, when you're using passkeys to authorize unlocks or purchases on your computer or your phone, you potentially have a more secure way of authorizing your passkeys rather than just a four-digit PIN. So, that maybe is what they're going for. I don't actually think they'll end up releasing that tomorrow. We'll see. Blood glucose tracking, there's been talk about a non-invasive tool for this. I don't see that coming tomorrow. The most I see coming in an Ultra 4 is the continuous heart rate monitoring. And the goal there is to, in my opinion, compete with the Aura Rings and the Whoops, who are able to provide that heart rate variability calculation for you, which is one of the very few things that the Apple Watch just doesn't do for you. And so, that's encouraged a lot of people to bundle up with, you know, wear a watch with the Whoop or wear the watch with the Aura Ring. I actually did a whole breakdown video. You could just YouTube it. Meet Kevin Aura Ring IPO. I I think they're kind of IPOing a top and this Apple Watch moment could actually be another catalyst for them on the downside. Unfortunately, you know, I I don't want to see any company suffer. But um I think they're IPOing close to a top. Uh as usual, Apple people get a little nervous going into these events. So, Apple's kind of been bobbing around 315. It's not the cheapest stock right now. It's trading for somewhere around 3.7 PEG. That's assuming current EPS estimates and growth of about 9% per year for the next 4 years. I think with the Ultra uh Mac Studio that they're selling, the M5, and the fold, we're actually going to see significantly greater growth at Apple. Even if I double the growth though, it's still not the cheapest play, but it gets a lot more justifiable to to to want to add to Apple around these levels because I think it'll it'll take some time for supply to actually catch up and provide an avenue for all of these sales to really expand. Like if you look at the Mac Studio right now, which has been a hit with even companies like AI these for inference compute. I think the soonest you could get one of the Mac Studios right now is January. The last time we looked, it was November. And when we first looked obviously, the original release was October. But if I go in here and look at an M5 Ultra chip and go for their 256 gig RAM version, you know, TB over here matters less. I'm looking at January 20th now. We're almost in February to get our hands on this. If I go to the 96 gigabyte version, I'm also looking at January 20th. So that doesn't seem to be the constraint and neither does the processor the constraint. Got it. Processor's actually constraining. So if you go for the 64-core, you could get it November 2nd. Soon as you go to the 80-core, that's when you're getting bumped back another two months, two and a half months actually. So the AI [music] compute centric version really getting sold out. Pretty impressive. So overall, bullish that Apple is going to grow faster. I'm bullish on the event tomorrow. We'll be covering you know, maybe during we'll kind of cover some highlights that come out, but Apple is really strict about people live streaming their event. So it's kind of lame, but it is what it is. We'll obviously do a summary after the fact. But that's my take on what to expect for Apple tomorrow. >> Why not advertise these things that you told us here? I feel like nobody [music] else knows about this. >> We'll we'll try a little advertising and see how it goes. >> Congratulations man. You have done so much. People love you. People look up to you. >> Kevin Paffrath there, financial analyst and YouTuber, Meet Kevin. Always great to get your take.