Apple's stock price plunged straight during the press conference.
At 1:00 a.m. Beijing time on September 10, the theme of Apple's 2025 Autumn New Product Launch Global Live. The "Technology Spring Festival Gala" with less than 1.5 hours has launched 8 new products, including four iPhones, three Apple Watches and AirPods Pro3.
The capital market responded coldly, with the intraday decline of the stock price close to 2%, which is in sharp contrast to the popularity of 6 seats among the top 10 Weibo hot searches.
This launch will have "three" highlights.
First, the standard version of iPhone 17 "added volume without price increase", the starting price of the Bank of China maintains 5,999 yuan, but the starting capacity doubles to 256GB. Compared with the same capacity version of iPhone 16, the same capacity is equivalent to a direct price reduction of 1,000 yuan, and it also realizes high-brush coverage of 120Hz for the first time, bringing real user concessions.
The second is the extremely light and light design of the iPhone Air, with a thickness of about 5.5 mm and a weight of 146 grams, setting a new record. Although there are some compromises in battery life, it demonstrates Apple's hard power in industrial design.
The third is the comprehensive upgrade of AirPods Pro3, with the active noise reduction effect being 1 times higher than the previous generation, and the battery life is up to 8 hours after turning on the noise reduction. The newly added optical heart rate sensor can also monitor data synchronously with health applications, achieving a dual breakthrough in sound quality and health functions.
However, the press conference also left an obvious regret of "three".
One is the multiple castration of the functions of the national version. iPhone Air only supports China Unicom eSIM services. Mobile and telecom users are basically unable to use call and cellular network functions after purchase. Apple's intelligent and satellite communication functions are absent from all iPhones in China. The real-time translation function of AirPods Pro3 not only does not support Chinese, but has not even mentioned it on the official website of mainland China.
Secondly, the Pro series is priced too high, the iPhone 17 Pro Max 2TB version is priced at up to 17,999 yuan, and the difference with the 1TB version is 4,000 yuan, pushing the top-end model to a new high.
The third is that innovation of Apple Watch has stagnated. Although the three new products support 5G networks, they all use the previous generation S10 chips. The national version does not provide practical hypertension monitoring functions, and they need to be unlocked through special means.
As an Apple fan for more than ten years, he is not only pleased with the screen upgrade and memory expansion of the iPhone 17 standard version, but he has indeed improved his speed and multitasking capabilities; but he is also helpless about the function castration. When foreign users can use Apple to translate emails in real time, domestic users have to toss the number portability for basic communication functions. This distinction makes people feel the embarrassment of "global products, local compromise".
Apple's press conference was like a "squeezing toothpaste", which not only had sincere hardware upgrades, but also exposed the problems of weak innovation and insufficient localization.
In the fiercely competitive Chinese market, if technological breakthroughs and user experience cannot be balanced, Apple's "watershed year" may not have a real "ignition" breakthrough.
The theme is "ignite", but now it is becoming more and more "can't burn".
Source: Xinghe Business Observation
