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InvenSense & Apple media event recap ?3

15:13 09-Sep-15


Before I begin, InvenSense has a couple of new announcements out today.  I think smart sports devices will be slow to develop meaningful volume, and a speech is probably of no immediate importance.

What is important: InvenSense gets the motion and microphone opportunities I spoke of because the Apple TV remote has accelerometers and gyroscopes and makes voice search primary navigation tool.  It should be available in late October, but others (Roku, Tivo, Amazon) are already doing much of this.  However, with yesterday's smart remote reference platform hopefully, InvenSense winds up being in the enviable position of not caring which TV services succeed or fail.  This device class is of some impact because there are somewhere around 200M TVs sold globally each year.

Another opportunity is the Stylus accessory for the new 12.9" iPad Pro, which includes "highly responsive sensors built into the tip" to detect "pressure, tilt, and stroke."  could be an opportunity for InvenSense, but unless Apple starts manages to reverse the trend on iPad sales, not much of one.  At $799 to $1079, plus another $99 for the Pencil and $169 for the Microsoft Surface style keyboard, I'm not about to bet on that.

As expected, the Watch adds support for third party native apps and new models from Hermes are on the way.  Watch OS2 is scheduled to be available Sept. 16 and I continue to hold out some hope for cross-platform API.

Apple will run its own upgrade program for the new iPhones (6S and 6S Plus) which are to be available on September 25th.   We'll have to wait until then for tear downs, but the event went down pretty much as expected.  Pretty good for InvenSense, but my guess is, not much good for Apple stock.