What the two largest technology companies will offer their consumers

Yesterday, Nokia presented six new products in Abu Dhabi (the event was hosted by President Stephen Elop), and Apple CEO Tom Cook presented his latest innovations in San Francisco. For both technology companies, these presentations were extremely important. Nokia is suffering losses and is preparing to come under the wing of Microsoft , and Apple, despite the fact that it remains very profitable, cannot stop the fall of shares (a year ago they cost $621, now they are $519). For four years now, the company, which is said to have lost its inherent magic after the death of Steve Jobs, has not introduced fundamentally new products. Presentation of new products is a chance to surprise analysts. Forbes tried to figure out how successful both companies were.

Easier, more expensive. Faster, cheaper

The 10-inch iPad, the previous update of which was cosmetic, sharply became lighter - from 652 g to 453 g - and began to be called iPad Air, by analogy with the thin MacBook Air. Lightness is a significant competitive advantage: many consumers complain that large tablets are difficult to hold for long periods of time (the Xperia Tablet Z weighs 495g). In addition, the tablet has become thinner (7.5 mm versus the previous 9.4), and the frames around the screen are smaller, but there were no world records here.

The iPad mini, in turn, received the most anticipated update - a Retina display with a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels (previously 1024x768), no longer lagging behind the 10-inch in terms of clarity. However, the high cost of such displays forced Apple to make the new generation more expensive - now the small iPad for $399 is only $100 behind the large one. In order not to lose the budget segment, the company did not discontinue the previous generation iPad mini, reducing its price from $329 to $299 - now you can join the world of Apple tablets cheaper than ever.

Both models inherited from the iPhone 5s a 64-bit processor and broader support for regional LTE standards (including Russian frequencies), but neither of them learned to recognize fingerprints. Sales of new iPads in a number of countries will begin on November 1, but Russia is not among them.

MacBook Pros with Retina displays also received a long-awaited update. If the MacBook Air received a new generation of Intel processors, longer battery life, faster flash memory and Wi-Fi back in June, then it’s only now that the flagship retina models have received their turn. In addition, both of them (13- and 15-inch) have fallen in price by $200.

An update to OS X will also help them work longer. Mavericks, a new version of the operating system that pays special attention to energy efficiency, was shown to the public at a conference back in June, but only now the release date and price have become known: owners of Mac computers can get it already today, and completely free (previously new versions cost $29.99). The iWork office suite is also becoming free.

Nokia tablet

Nokia has found something to respond to its competitor. Rumors about a tablet from the Finnish company have been circulating for many years, but they were mainly fueled by the logic of “everyone is releasing it, why not this one” and “the company’s business is bad, it needs something new.” Now, after several years of waiting, the first tablet has actually appeared - the Lumia 2520 has a 10-inch screen with 1080p resolution, LTE and a camera with Zeiss optics. People take pictures with tablets much less often than with smartphones, and Nokia didn’t use the expensive PureView as a camera, but they didn’t want to make it a pass-through camera either. The tablet runs Windows RT. For a company whose ties to Microsoft were strong even before the deal, the choice of OS is logical, but risky: Microsoft's own Surface RT sales have been disappointing, despite an active advertising campaign.

With the flagship smartphone Lumia 1520, the company is also entering new territory: while Android phones reached a 6-inch screen diagonal much earlier, Nokia had no models “between a smartphone and a tablet” before. It's not just the screen that has big numbers here: it has a 20-megapixel camera (at the same time, the company released a new Nokia Camera photography app), a screen with 1080p resolution, and the no-contract model costs $749. The flagship iPhone 5s costs $100 less in the US.

Lumia 1320 is also a 6-inch model, but for poorer regions (China and Vietnam will be the first to receive it). It costs only $339, which comes with a lower screen resolution (720p), a dual-core processor instead of a quad-core one, a 5-megapixel camera, and no wireless charging.

The Asha budget line, which does not include Windows Phone, has also been replenished with new models - 500, 502 and 503. In terms of their characteristics, they do not differ radically from the previously presented Asha 501, but the younger 500th model with a price of $69 is cheaper than the 501st by as much as $30: For developing countries, which the entire line is aimed at, this difference can be very noticeable.

But with all this, perhaps the most important news for Nokia did not come from the company itself: during the presentation it became known that the Instagram application, with its more than 100 million monthly audience, will have a version for Windows Phone. No matter how technically good the devices are, consumers will not want to buy them if they cannot use them for their purposes. Therefore, the announcement of the news during the Nokia presentation seemed more than logical: this announcement could directly affect sales of Windows phones.

Forecasts

Have companies been able to demonstrate that the problems have been overcome? Analysts are cautious. In the case of Nokia, Thomas Hasson of Forrester points out that the company has to compete with Microsoft: “Despite the more affordable price, the positioning of the Nokia tablet in relation to Microsoft's Surface 2 is not obvious, and after the completion of the acquisition of the company, this will have to be done figure it out." Richard Hurst from Ovum is more optimistic, he believes that the presented models can help both Nokia and Windows Phone in general - and in the future, active competition with Apple is possible

Commenting on Apple's new products, IHS iSuppli analyst Rhoda Alexander said that the company will face a shortage of displays for the new iPad mini: “The supply of this component is severely limited. We don’t expect mass adoption until the first quarter of 2014.” Société Generale's Andy Perkins also looked at data from Apple's component suppliers, but his conclusions are much more optimistic: he predicts the company's share price will rise from the current $519 to $575. However, he is betting not so much on the iPad, but on the iPhone 5s and 5c presented in September.

Again, no fundamentally new devices were demonstrated at the presentation. However, according to an analyst at the Japanese company Advanced Research Japan Co., the long-awaited Apple TV will finally appear in 2014. If this forecast comes true, the company will still compete for the title of the most innovative in the world that has eluded it.

Apple vs Nokia: day of big presentations