Has Apple Inc (NASDAQ:APPL) come to the end of the road? That’s a question posed by the analysts at UBS in a brief note out Wednesday.
The answer, according to the Swiss bank’s highly rated tech team, is a resounding ‘no’.
According them Apple is doing what it has always done - segueing neatly from one product to the next; be that from the Mac to iPod, or iPod to iPhone.
Ambient intelligence, which is where technology is sensitive and responsive to the people and environment around it, will play a bigger part in Apple’s thinking as it moves forward, UBS reckons.
“Ambience requires hardware, software, and orchestration,” it said in a note to investors.
“Although the iPhone remains important in new uses such as AR [augmented reality], we expect the watch, AirPods, and possibly other wearables to evolve beyond current functionality and potentially impact hard-to-disrupt industries such as healthcare and education.
“Siri increasingly can play traffic cop, invoking services enabled by Apple opening up APIs, to provide a seamless user experience across devices whether the consumer is sitting, walking, shopping, or driving.
“We suggest that this trusted, connected ecosystem could be the next scarcity.”
The bank thinks the current US$113 share price reflects a gradual erosion of Apple’s customer base and a decline in the amount spent.
It is a lot more bullish on prospects, although its US$127 price target doesn’t exactly knock it out the park, so to speak.
