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Apple unveils new AirPods and MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and Max chips

Yahoo Finance’s Emily McCormick breaks down Apple’s new product updates.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: Welcome back, everybody, to "Yahoo Finance Live." Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Apple, at its event today, unveiling some new products, including the third generation AirPod. We've got Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick here to break down all the big rollouts. Emily, what can you tell us about these new AirPods? I believe they're pre-ordering today, right?

EMILY MCCORMICK: That's right, Alexis. We got a number of new product updates both on the hardware and the services side of Apple at the company's latest event, which just kicked off at about 1:00 PM Eastern this afternoon. But in terms of those AirPods, of course, those have been quite highly anticipated by a number of consumers. This is the third generation of Apple's most popular AirPods and the first time that we've seen an update to these entry level AirPods since 2019.

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Now, a couple of new features available on these. These new AirPods coming with spatial audio. So of course, that surround sound type of feature that we'd seen in the previous AirPod Pros. The new design also comes with four sensors, so more control of music and phone calls. They also added a new contour design as well as adaptive EQ, which we'd also seen in that previous model of the AirPod Pros that, again, really customizes that audio experience to each individual user here. Apple really touting this as a new iteration of what we've seen for the previous models of the entry-level AirPods.

And then taking a look at some other product specs here, battery life is now for six hours of listening time. Five minutes of charge now gives you an hour of use. So really trying to boost the energy efficiency here of this hardware. And the company also added magsafe and wireless charging for the AirPods. So in addition to actually having that cable port for the previous models, you can also attach that to that same type of magnetic charger that we have for the Apple Watch.

Now, orders are being taken starting today. This new model is starting at $179 for the AirPods. They also got the old model to $129. So again, as we tend to see with Apple, once they unleash those new models, cutting the price for some of the older ones as well.

And then, Alexis, before I turn things back to you, also want to note that we got an update in terms of Apple Music because the company did launch a totally new plan for Apple Music called the voice plan. And it's just $4.99 per month. And it's a Siri-only and voice-only enabled plan for individuals to be able to use Apple Music. It's about half the price of the typical individual plan for the Apple Music service here.

So really, Apple is trying to unleash a broader suite of products both on the hardware and the services side. And this really just being one of these latest offerings.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: All right. Now, I know we've also got some news about the MacBook Pro. That's also getting an upgrade here. What can you tell us about that?

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, with the MacBook Pro, of course, this have been, really, the banner event coming out of Apple's announcement. And the new MacBook Pro is going to be coming in a new 16-inch model as well as a 14-inch model.

A couple of specs here. We have the 16-inch model is just 16.8 millimeters thin at 4.7 pounds. And then we take a look at the 14-inch model. That's 15 and 1/2 millimeters thin and 3 and 1/2 pounds.

And one of the big updates that's coming to these Macs, they're actually adding ports back to these versions. Now, on one side, there's going to be an HDMI cord for displays as well as a Thunderbolt port. And they added back an SD card slot as well for media.

And then on the other side, they're having their headphone jack and two more Thunderbolt ports for a total of three in the system. And they also added back that magsafe charger for this latest version of the MacBook as well.

But what Apple really drilled into during their event today was the fact that they announced two full new processors, and that was the M1 Pro as well as the M1 Max. And both of these are featuring faster processing speeds, faster GPU and CPU performance. And ultimately, Apple really trying to increase the efficiency of their operating systems here. Really, a plethora of new capabilities that are going to be able to occur faster and more efficiently for developers on these systems.

And again, these products are also going to have their orders being taken today, starting to actually be available next week though. And that 14-inch model will be starting at $1,999. And the 16-inch model starting at $2,499, Alexis.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: Emily, before we let you go, what has Apple said in terms of the computer chip shortage that the world has been experiencing? And it's been hitting tech in the auto industry particularly hard. Are they able to navigate through that and get these products in people's hands by the holidays?

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, Alexis, that's not something that I actually saw at the event so far. Of course, as we know, a lot of times, these Apple Events do tend to be more announcements, more upbeat announcements, and more promotional in terms of actually just getting the news of these products out there.

Because of that, the company didn't necessarily talk about whether there was a certain constraint on availability. We know from the past couple of weeks there had been reports from media outlets, including Bloomberg, that there were going to be some capacity constraints for the latest iPhones. And we got those announcements out, actually, a couple of weeks ago for those latest models, but nothing necessarily on these new AirPod or MacBook Pro products, but certainly something we'll be watching heading into the holiday season.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: For sure. And we know that Apple has moved away from Intel and now making its own chips in-house. But it doesn't mean they're immune to the shortage that's going on.

All right, Emily McCormick, thanks for that roundup. Certainly lots of news coming out of Apple today.

The stock is higher slightly. And that's helping to boost both the Dow or, really the NASDAQ. The Dow is actually lower right now. It's off by about 45 points. But as you can see, the broader market doing pretty well here.

We've got the S&P 500 up by 9. And big tech back in favor, at least for today, up now 93 points. But again, the Dow trying to make it back into the plus column. We've got those inflation concerns continuing to weigh on investors. And of course, we are entering the thick of earnings season. So far, about 8% of the S&P 500 companies have given us their results. And they have been better than expected. So the market has been liking what it's been hearing.