Gene Munster, a renowned analyst with Piper Jaffray, has issued a note to clients this week, sharing his company’s expectations for the WWDC 2010 keynote. Munster predicts that Apple’s event will not blow anyone’s mind, mostly due to the iPhone 4 leaks. Despite this year’s conference being almost entirely focused on the iPhone OS, the researcher also trusts Apple to offer a sneak peek inside Mac OS X 10.7.
Munster said today that Apple had "little room for surprise" at its Worldwide Developers conference, set to kick off on June 7. "We believe that it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch; rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the U.S. at launch," Munster wrote. He included expectations that Apple might replace the $99 iPhone 3G with the iPhone 3GS, or a new device altogether and that the company might provide a "limited demo" of Mac OS X 10.7.
"The Mac OS has not seen the same level of innovation as iPhone software in recent years," Munster said. "With the next version of Mac OS X, we expect Apple to bring some of the same innovation to the Mac platform. Multi-touch technology, for example could be a key feature of Mac OS 10.7." Still, the sessions scheduled by Apple for this year’s conference (listed on the company’s website) stand as evidence that the current focus is iPhone OS 4. Historically, Apple hasn’t been very keen on clogging up its events with announcements on all fronts.
"Bottom line," Munster reportedly shared, "WWDC will likely be in-line with expectations, and a non-event for the stock." He added that, "The new iPhone will likely drive unit sales beyond Street expectations, providing a positive catalyst for shares of AAPL in the coming months,"
according to a report by AppleInsisder.
Other details from Munster’s note are
provided by World of Apple, which posted a list of expectations for the WWDC 2010 keynote, citing the same analyst. According to the report, Munster does not only believe that a new iPhone is likely to launch next month, but he also forecasts that it will be priced at $199/$299 (depending on storage capacity). As far as availability is concerned, Munster foresees Apple will ship the device to its retail stores by the end of June, and expects the 3G model to be completely phased out. Finally, the analyst also says it’s possible Steve Jobs will provide an update on iPad sales.
Softpedia note Frankly, you don’t have to be a hot-shot analyst with Piper Jaffray to nail the latter. Virtually every Apple keynote includes such updates. Also, we want our readers to get all the relevant information they need about just how exciting WWDC 2010 should be. As such, according to a screenshot posted over at MacRumors, Apple’s CEO responded to a fan’s email saying, "You won’t bet disappointed," referring to the upcoming keynote address scheduled for June 7. Just saying… (full story
here).
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