AAPL faces a massive, successful product cycle: iPhone Duo demand far exceeds supply and AAPL will sell every unit it can make; the secondary premium may fade. Its stock decoupling from AI infrastructure makes sense because AAPL is mostly a consumer company and does not follow those trends.

Now, to join us and help us analyze the reasons for all this excitement, and what it means for the next chapter of Apple, is Max Weinbach, technology analyst at Creative Strategies.

The hype surrounding the new iPhone duo is huge, so in your opinion, is this just another successful launch or are we facing a massive and influential product cycle for Apple?

I believe we are facing a truly successful and massive product cycle for Apple. The iPhone duo is just the beginning of this cycle. If you look at what they have released or will release over the next four weeks, we will see the iPhone duo that is finally available this Friday.

The following week, the HomePod Mini and Apple TV will be released. The following week, the new MacBook Pro, new iPad Mini, and new iMac are expected to be unveiled, all of which were announced about an hour ago.

Therefore, the iPhone duo will certainly be a huge success. I truly believe that they will sell all the devices they can manufacture, and at the moment it seems that demand far exceeds supply.

I believe orders are currently on hold in the United States until January 25, 2027, which is not surprising given that it is a $2,000 device.

And I think that perhaps, as we move towards the new "MacBook Pro" devices with their updated design, we will see a similar situation where orders will be postponed until next year.

Putting that aside, I agree with you; If you want to achieve success with a new iPhone model, it has to come with something different. This is the first truly different thing we've seen since, I don't know, maybe 10 models or more apparently.

You mentioned, Max, that the iPhone was like an essential, indispensable product. What motivates me to buy it is that I'm breaking my current phone, because you need it. But when it comes to other products over the past 10 or 15 years, the only truly successful products I can think of besides the iPhone are the Apple Watch, which dominates wearables, and of course, AirPods, which dominates Bluetooth headphones.

Much of the industry sector at the technical level has been moving away from closed systems towards an open standard called "Matter". So, if I get a smart thermostat, I can connect it to anything that supports this standard. This includes Google, Amazon, and Apple.

So, if you already have a smart home, you can replace that central device (Hub) with almost anything you want. I believe the real advantage Apple has in this area, unlike other competitors, is that those systems are limited to your home.

What makes Apple Home View unique is that it connects your iPhone, and the iPhones of all your family members as well. So, your text messages, emails, calls, calendar, any widgets that are there, and anything from Apple CarPlay will also appear.

There is much greater benefit in "Home View", and most of the industry has moved back towards open standards. I think it's not unlikely that we'll see people who have probably spent tens of thousands of dollars on other systems, replacing their cheapest item ($100), the remote control, with Apple's Home View ($300) simply because it allows them to do more.

Well, I think that's a good point. Right now, what do we consider most important? Do you think it's more important to know how many iPhones they can actually ship or sell, or how many people are still waiting to buy one?

I think it's a combination of both. It seems that manufacturing the "iPhone Duo" is extremely difficult. If you look at what it is, you will find that it is an ultra-thin foldable screen with two layers of ultra-thin glass and a custom adhesive that Apple designed and created specifically for this purpose.

It has a custom layer on top with a nano texture. They redesigned that material, and the manufacturing process for that nano-texture as well. Many of these items are extremely difficult to manufacture.

I believe there will be demand as long as they are able to produce it. This will continue until it is updated next year. And I truly believe that they will sell every single unit they can manufacture; they will sell them all.

I don't know if the premium we're seeing in the secondary market right now, or that sellers will cling to, will continue. I saw on eBay that some were being sold for $7,000 to $10,000 for a device worth $2,000 or $3,000.

I don't know if we will continue to see this $3,000 bonus for getting it immediately. I hope that fades away. This is generally a bad practice.

But I really think people really want an "iPhone Duo". It is unique. It's different. I was saying that Apple now has three categories of iPhones: economy, professional, and luxury.

This is one of the luxury devices. I think it attracts a lot of people. Even if it doesn't have a specific use, it's really cool and people want to own something really cool.

Max, speaking of divergence, what has really emerged during the last quarter at least, or let's say since the beginning of the summer, is that Apple has decoupled—from the point of view of trading or stock price performance—from the rest of the AI infrastructure sector and major technology companies.

Its performance is not correlated with the S&P 500 index. Spontaneously, if we look at last week. It has performed very well while many AI infrastructure companies have been struggling.

From your perspective as an analyst, is this an encouraging sign of its ability to perform well, or is it a little worrying because it is defensive in nature at the moment?

I think it makes sense when you look at both markets and industries. When you look at building AI infrastructure chips, it depends in one way or another on companies adopting AI.

This is where everyone believes the economic viability of bearing these costs will come from. Apple, on the other hand, is mostly a consumer company. I mean, clearly, the Mac Studio with MetaMuse last week for running models and some of the things that are specific to these $20,000 machines is moving more towards the corporate market, but it's still a small trading volume.

They are mostly a consumer products and services company. So, as long as consumers have an interest in technology, I think it makes sense for Apple to be very different from names that focus on selling to businesses.

It makes sense to me that they don't really follow the prevailing trends.