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Apple Inc. didn’t let the COVID-19 outbreak stop it from moving forward with a pair of product launches.
The company announced a new iPad Pro with enhanced camera and scanning features as well as a new MacBook Air Wednesday, even as its stores outside China remain closed due to the spread of COVID-19, the disease brought on by the novel coronavirus.
In addition to featuring an ultra-wide camera and a LiDAR scanner that supports depth-sensing and augmented-reality capabilities, Apple’s AAPL, -4.26% new iPad Pro supports a trackpad. The company said in a release that the trackpad experience has been designed specifically for tablet use. The device also runs on a new A12Z Bionic chip, which is meant to give the tablet a performance boost over prior models.
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The iPad Pro comes in 11-inch and 12.9-inch screen sizes. The 11-inch Wi-Fi model begins at $799, while its cellular counterpart starts at $949. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro begins at $999 for the Wi-Fi model and $1,149 for the cellular one.
Apple also upgraded its MacBook Air, which will start at $999 for 256 gigabytes of storage. The new model has CPU performance and is two time faster, as well as graphics performance that is up to 80 percent faster than the previous model.
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Many were expecting Apple to unveil a low-cost iPhone SE2 model in March, but that announcement didn’t come Wednesday. The company has already turned its June WWDC developer event into a virtual conference, and one of the biggest questions now concerns what the COVID-19 outbreak will mean for Apple’s most significant launch event of the year: its annual introduction of new flagship iPhone models, which usually takes place in September.
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives lowered his price target on Apple shares Wednesday, writing that his new financial model now assumes that the expected fall launch of 5G-enabled iPhones will be postponed.
The stock is down 3% in Wednesday trading. It’s lost 23% over the past month as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -7.82% has fallen 32%.
