There's no more shaking the Apple tree

THE announcement this week by Apple that it will shortly release two new iPhone models as well as a smartwatch was surprising only in that there were no surprises.

THE announcement this week by Apple that it will shortly release two new iPhone models as well as a smartwatch was surprising only in that there were no surprises.

The rumour mill was astonishingly accurate this year, down to the exact dimensions of both the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus. Even the names of the devices, camera features, battery power, and materials used in manufacture were spot on.

This means that Apple is no longer able to control leaks of specifications or physical components from across its vast supply chain - which means it can no longer spring big surprises on the market.

That is good news for Apple. It means that the company's share price - and therefore both market capitalisation and credibility of the brand - are no longer subject to wild gyrations following the launch of a new product.

There were certainly heart-stopping moments for investors focused on short-term price shifts this week, but they were exceptionally short term. In the hours leading up to the launch, the share price gained more than 2% from its $99.11 (about R1000) opening, only to fall by a little more than that after the announcement of the phones.

Apple next unveiled its new Apple Pay mobile payments service, and the price leapt again by more than 4%.

Finally, when the Apple Watch was revealed, the disappointment that it did not set a new standard was palpable in a steady decline of the share price to below its opening level.

The announcement that the new U2 album, Songs of Innocence, would be made available at no cost to all Apple iTunes subscribers did not arrest the "slide". Quite the contrary: it clearly represented a massive cost to Apple in the fee it would have paid to U2, and loss of potential sales of the album.

The share price was, however, a reflection of ultra short-term investment strategies rather than of what the new devices said about Apple's fortunes. Any investors watching the rumour mill had known what to expect.

Within 48 hours of the launch, the Apple share price had resumed the slow but steady upward climb it had enjoyed since April, suggesting that the anticipated new products had for some time generated optimism about Apple's performance.

The one key rumour that failed to materialise - that Apple would delay release of the iPhone 6 Plus due to production problems with the 5.5-inch display - would have been the only significant catalyst for a price drop. The fact that it will join the iPhone 6 in stores across nine countries on September 19 means Apple will have two distinct offerings catering to two separate categories of demand.

Unlike last year's flagship 5s and only slightly cheaper 5c, these will both contribute to a boost in sales. Pent-up demand from those who did not upgrade to the 5s last year - plus the appeal of a large-screen iPhone, Apple's first "phablet" - is expected to propel the 6 to record sales.

However, if the production problems of the Plus do exist, and Apple brings only limited quantities to market, the company could face investor pessimism a few weeks from now.

The Apple Watch will have minimal impact on the company's fortunes. Although it demonstrates the best integration yet of a smartwatch into the ecosystem of a smartphone operating system, it does not set new technology or style benchmarks. Both Samsung and Sony have more advanced features built into their respective Gear S and SmartWatch 3.

Apple did not give a launch date for the Watch, saying only that it would appear early next year. The new iPhones can be expected in South Africa in mid-November.