Apple to roll out glut of new products in Q3 including iWatch in two sizes, 'iPhone 6,' 12" MacBook
Apple is expected to start rolling out new products starting in the second quarter, says one informed analyst, including the much rumored iWatch, redesigned "iPhone 6," a 12-inch MacBook Air and a low-cost iMac.

According to a research note obtained by AppleInsider, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes the third quarter is going to be a big one for Apple as the company is primed to release revamped iPad Airs and iPad minis, the iWatch in two sizes, an all-new 4.7-inch iPhone, an Apple TV upgrade, an all-new 12-inch MacBook and an update to the MacBook Pro lineup.
With the glut of new products, not to mention new product categories, Kuo expects the third quarter to be a hugely important time for Apple and how the public perceives its future.
"We believe the rumored iWatch will be Apple's most important product this year, carrying much more weight than iPhone 6," Kuo writes, adding, "as market feedback for the product should reveal whether Apple still has the ability to continue making game-changing products with Tim Cook at the helm."
If iWatch is a hit, Kuo believes that in five to ten years Apple's competition in the sector will no longer be tech companies, but fashion brand vendors.
The analyst says Apple's success hinges on five key factors: replacement demand from larger iPhones; whether the new iPads' minor upgrades will carry momentum in 2014; whether the all-new 12-inch MacBook Air will redefine the notebook user experience; how much low-price iMac can boost overall shipments; and App Store availability on Apple TV.

According to a research note obtained by AppleInsider, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes the third quarter is going to be a big one for Apple as the company is primed to release revamped iPad Airs and iPad minis, the iWatch in two sizes, an all-new 4.7-inch iPhone, an Apple TV upgrade, an all-new 12-inch MacBook and an update to the MacBook Pro lineup.
With the glut of new products, not to mention new product categories, Kuo expects the third quarter to be a hugely important time for Apple and how the public perceives its future.
"We believe the rumored iWatch will be Apple's most important product this year, carrying much more weight than iPhone 6," Kuo writes, adding, "as market feedback for the product should reveal whether Apple still has the ability to continue making game-changing products with Tim Cook at the helm."
If iWatch is a hit, Kuo believes that in five to ten years Apple's competition in the sector will no longer be tech companies, but fashion brand vendors.
The analyst says Apple's success hinges on five key factors: replacement demand from larger iPhones; whether the new iPads' minor upgrades will carry momentum in 2014; whether the all-new 12-inch MacBook Air will redefine the notebook user experience; how much low-price iMac can boost overall shipments; and App Store availability on Apple TV.
Comments
That made me laugh then I realized it wasn't suppose to be a joke.
I will never understand the Kuo-loving at AI. You'd think they'd practically promoted him to ghost writer.
The last time we saw a timeline like this, EVERY SINGLE POINT ON IT WAS WRONG. WHY WOULD WE CARE ABOUT ANOTHER ONE?
GLUT: Overload, overfill, related to glutton, an oversupply
Apple to roll out an OVERLOAD OVERFILL OVERSUPPLY WAY TOO MUCH THAN WHAT PEOPLE NEED in Q3
That's what you wrote, dude. Heavy duty editorializing rather than just reporting
Why the negative word? How about POSITIVE words if you must editorialize? Suggestions include:
Apple to roll out CORNUCOPIA of new products
Apple to roll out WONDERLAND of new products
Apple to roll out PLENTIFUL BLESSED ABUNDANCE
TREASURE TROVE of new products
Apple to roll out NEW PRODUCTS APLENTY!
AHOY APPLE GOODNESS! FANTASYLAND of innovation and candy-colored RAINBOWS of invention coming in Q3
Okay, does that sound inappropriately biased? Well so does GLUT
Apple will release products when it deems they're ready, and taking thousands of factors into consideration. They don't have some of this stuff in fucking boxes in a secret warehouse just killing time until the fall. May, just MAYBE all these products still need dev time.
To what extent do these claims match up with the supply chain rumours and leaks? We know there's a new iPad Air and Pro on the way (from the new model numbers in iOS 7.1), and there are a lot of signs pointing towards a larger iPhone, so those both look pretty credible, but I haven't heard anything about the alleged new 12" macbook. Has anyone else seen any signs of this?
edit: Two sizes of iWatch face also makes sense given the wide variation in wrist size within the population.
I don't want a cheap iMac but one that gives me enough oompf for 3D animation. Since I need Nvidia I can't buy a MacPro%u2026 so please Apple, iMac 27" with gtx 880m 8GB VRAM? Please?
Any cheap iMac is going to have Iris Pro graphics. You would be looking at a regularly priced iMac as you suggest. Whether or not it will have 8GB is doubtful IMO. Maybe 4 GB as a BTO, but I doubt 8GB.
You mean in terms of rumours or circumstantial evidence, like a new part number showing up in the OS. I wouldn't expect any circumstantial evidence for a new size Mac unless it's a photo of a leak, but there have been rumours about it.
I think it makes sense. The 11" 16:9 is just too small and the 13" is too close to the new 13" Retina MacBook Pro in terms of weight and size now that the HDD and ODD are gone. I think chucking both of those and instead using a 12" 16:10 model would fit that market segment nicely.
Men and Woman's watches also typically come in two size varieties. I'd say mostly because of traditional wrist sizes but I'm sure style plays a roll. The question is: How does Apple offer two different sizes that offer the same features and battery life? I think one of the other has to be different for this to work, which makes me wonder if that could cause a trend of the "men's" version becoming popular with women.
I will never understand the Kuo-loving at AI. You'd think they'd practically promoted him to ghost writer.
There's a lot of analyst "loving" that goes on here. It's pretty ugly.
This is going to be an exciting fall!
To what extent do these claims match up with the supply chain rumours and leaks? We know there's a new iPad Air and Pro on the way (from the new model numbers in iOS 7.1)
Those new model numbers are for minor variants of the current iPad Air (A1476) and iPad Mini with Retina Display (A1491), adding support for TD-LTE for China Mobile, which was missing from the original A1475/A1490 models.
Judging from various reports around the net, the A1476/A1491 models were introduced in the last week of March, two or three weeks after iOS 7.1.
They are listed on Apple's iPad LTE page, and you can probably use archive.org to compare it with an earlier version from last October.
The pre-WWDC pump-and-dump stories seem to have begun early.
Any cheap iMac is going to have Iris Pro graphics. You would be looking at a regularly priced iMac as you suggest. Whether or not it will have 8GB is doubtful IMO. Maybe 4 GB as a BTO, but I doubt 8GB.
Since you can configure the top of the line iMac with 4GB right now and the nvidia gtx 800series can handle 8gb I hope Apple offers the option to push that to 8GB. Especially when you're rendering on GPU you need every last byte of VRAM you can get. Right now I have to render on CPU because the VRAM of my old machine is too small (1GB) for just about anything but OS X and Games…
My dream would be an i7 5th gen, gtx 880m (without the m, but thats not gonna happen) with 8GB VRAM and 32GB normal RAM for the CPU… lets see how close Apple gets to this, its possible…
The pre-WWDC pump-and-dump stories seem to have begun early.
All hoping for quiet updates before WWDC, just like Apple likes it: update the Pro and expensive things silently before the WWDC and then have a big show on the innovations in mobile and software. Apple's focus on the WWDC lately has had little - but not none - room for incremental upgrades and was more on presenting cutting edge and innovation as well as big news like iPhone and iPad.