Apple product launch updates: iPhone 14, new Watch Ultra debut

Apple announced a new model of Apple Watch at its product launch event on Wednesday.

The Apple Watch Series 8 features an always-on display, and is “swim proof, dust proof and crack resistant,” the company said.

The new model of the Apple Watch includes advanced features for women to track their menstrual cycles, including a temperature sensor that offers an estimate for the last time a woman wearing the watch has ovulated.

The Apple Watch Series 8 offers fitness aids, emergency call services and detailed health information like blood oxygen levels.

The Apple Watch “keeps you connected to the things you care about most, encourages you to stay active, and monitors your health and gets you help when you need it,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

The Apple product launch event on Wednesday follows mixed results in the company’s latest earnings report, which came out in late July.

Third quarter earnings showed that Apple outpaced analyst expectations for profit and revenue, as the company brought in $83 billion.

Growth, however, slowed for the company. Sales jumped 2% year-over-year in the third quarter, a marked decline from 9% year-over-year growth in the prior quarter.

Over the quarter, Apple felt the crunch of supply chain constraints brought about by the COVID pandemic, though such limits affected the company “less than we anticipated at the beginning of the quarter,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said on an earnings call with investors in July.

Still, as Apple readies to launch a new iPhone model on Wednesday, the company recently passed a sales milestone for the product.

The iPhone surpassed Google’s Android to capture more than 50% of the U.S. smartphone market for the first time, data firm Counterpoint Research said on Friday.

Shares in Apple stood largely unchanged on Wednesday morning prior to the company’s product launch event.

As with many tech companies, Apple’s stock has taken a pummeling this year. The stock price has fallen more than 13% since the outset of 2022, and dropped nearly 7% over the past month.

Despite a difficult year, Apple stock has outperformed major indices like the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The S&P 500 has fallen more than 17% in 2022, and the Nasdaq has dropped more than 25% over that period.

Since the Apple launch event last year, on Sept. 14, the company’s stock is up about 3.5%, as of Wednesday morning.

The event on Wednesday is the first of the company’s annual product launch events to take place in person since 2019, prior to the pandemic.

Apple is expected to release a set of four iPhone models that could be called the iPhone 14. The new line is widely expected to feature an improved camera, among other updates.

Besides the standard 6.1-inch iPhone 14, the company is expected to release a bigger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max.

In addition to the iPhone, the company could announce a new line of Apple Watches and AirPods.

The company is developing new health-related features that could alert a person to an increase in blood pressure as well as a change in body temperature related to fertility, The Wall Street Journal reported last September.