The article was written by Motek Moyen Research Seeking Alpha’s #1 Writer on Long Ideas and #2 in Technology  – Senior Analyst at I Know First. 

Apple Stock Price Predictions

• As per the recent reviews, the iPad Pro is not yet a real business laptop replacement.
• The large display and more powerful CPU/GPU of the iPad Pro makes it a very potent touchscreen gadget for digital musicians and producers.
• The global digital music industry has many big-spending people that will not mind the high price tag of the iPad Pro.
• Unlike the poor state of graphic/design iOS apps sector, there are now very sophisticated iPad-centric music composition-related apps.
• I Know First gives AAPL a bullish 1-year algorithmic forecast

Tim Cook’s bullish claim that the Apple (AAPL) iPad Pro could replace the laptop or desktop PC is a sales pitch that is not going well with buyers. Based on several recent hands-on reviews of experts, the supposedly enterprise-centric iPad Pro is far from becoming an existentialist threat to business laptops and desktop computers.

The experts’ putdown of the iPad Pro as a serious corporate/personal productivity tool is in line with my assessment that the ARM-based iPad Pro is a poor answer to the versatile Surface Book/Pro 4. I see the iPad Pro as a niche product that serves as a companion device for MacBook or Mac-using designers.

I expect Apple to sell 2-5 million units of the iPad Pro, mostly to creative professionals. Aside from print/web designers and digital illustrators, the another niche set of customers that could embrace the pricey iPad Pro are amateur/professional musicians, beatmakers, and digital music producers. Unlike the reluctance of Adobe (ADBE) and AutoDesk (ADSK) to port competent versions of their industry-standard software products to the iOS platform, the music software industry has heartily embraced  the iOS platform as a legit addition to Windows/Mac digital music production.

The future importance of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is best illustrated by the graphic below, which shows just how big this new Apple tablet is. The supersized display means it will allow for more efficient touch operations of advanced music making iOS apps.

(Source: Apple)

The iPad Pro as A Live Performance and Music Composition Tool

Even though I’m tone-deaf, I still play the guitar. I was once a member of an indie punk band during the late 90s. My iPad 2 and iPad Mini 2 indeed greatly helped me improve my guitar playing. The iPad’s potential as a music tool is no longer limited to basic apps like the $4.99 GarageBand from Apple. Like I said, the bigger-display iOS devices have prompted a lot of Digital Audio Workstation ((DAW)) software makers to really come up with advanced music composition-related apps for the iPad.

I use Caustic 3 but I plan to upgrade to the more robust $49.99 Cubasis iPad app from Steinberg. The 12.9-inch display, very powerful quad-core A9X processor, and the 4GB RAM of the iPad Pro should make it an excellent host gadget for very sophisticated iOS 9 DAW apps like Cubasis or the 48-track Auria from WaveMachine.

Below is a screenshot of Cubasis running on an iPad. The numerous menu buttons, audio/MIDI tracks, and tools of Cubasis really needs a bigger iPad screen for more efficient finger-based operations.

(Source: Apple)

Like in the desktop PC platform, multi-track musical composition and beatmaking are always better when the host device has lots of RAM and more powerful multi-core CPU. The 4GB RAM inside an iPad Pro should allow people to create 24-track or 48-track music compositions without the problem of latency.

I now see the iPad Pro as a legit touchscreen version of the MacBook Air when it comes to digital music production. Steinberg’s programmers made the $50 Cubasis iPad app offer almost all the important features of the $524 Cubase Pro 8 professional DAW for Mac OS X.

The big advantage of the iOS version is that it is optimized for touchscreen operations. No current Mac OS X computer has touchscreen displays. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is now the perfect touchscreen-friendly Apple gadget for digital musicians and producers.

As for live performance purposes, the $799 iPad Pro could serve as a competent alternative to Ableton’s $799 Push 2 hardware controller for Ableton Live compositing/live performance music software. Unlike the single-purpose Push 2 hardware, the iPad Pro is good for other tasks.

Like the pricey Push 2 hardware, the $24.99 touchAble app allows people to use their iPad to control their Ableton Live software for real-time live performance and/or recording. Conductr is a free iOS app (with in-app purchases) that also replicates the function of Ableton’s Push 2 hardware controller.

(Source: Conductr.com)

Apple Cares About The Music Production Potential Of The iPad

Investors should care that Apple is also helping improve the iPad’s role in the digital music production scene. Apple, perhaps trying to help musicians, decided to create its own free alternative to the $4.99 AudioBus 2 inter-app audio software. AudioBus was the pioneer app that allowed iPad users to do side-chaining of different iOS music apps to compose music or do live practices.

Apple released its own proprietary Inter-App Audio ((IAA)) technology in iOS 7. Like AudioBus, IAA also allows people to side-chain or the simultaneous interconnection of their different iOS music production apps. There are now more than 130 iOS music apps that supports Apple’s Inter-App Audio technology. Cubasis, GarageBand, and Auria now supports IAA.

For example, IAA allows me to do real-time side-chaining of Auto-Tune For Mobile with GarageBand to ensure correct pitching of my singing voice. This is while also using a side-chained AmpliTube guitar effects apps for my guitar with

The ability to side-chain different software is why digital music production became big on desktop computers. Apple’s free Inter-App Audio technology shows it was judiciously responding to software makers creating feature-rich, sophisticated music composition apps to the iPad.

Let us not also forget that Apple gets a 30% cut from the sales of $50 DAW iOS apps like Cubasis. By making the iOS platform more friendly to professional musicians and music producers, Apple is creating an incentive for people to consider the super-upgraded hardware specs of the iPad Pro.

My argument that the iPad Pro is a potential must-have tool for musicians is that a person could really create a complete digital audio workstation in the $799 iPad Pro if he also purchase Cubasis and Korg’s Gadget app. Korg Gadget is an almost accurate $39.99 iOS port of 15 different hardware synthesizers of Korg.

Instead of spending $1,750 just to buy one Korg M3 Pro hardware synthesizer, an amateur musician can just buy the cheapest iPad Pro and the Cubasis and Korg Gadget Apps.

My Takeaway and I Know First Algorithmic Forecast

Musicians and music producers are also like graphic artists. They are loyal customers that are willing to shell out big bucks for the iPad Pro if it helps improve their production workflow. They are not that many in numbers but hey, anything that would help Apple sell more of the iPad Pro, is an important topic.

Going forward, I expect music software vendors like Steinberg and Korg to issue even more sophisticated versions of their iOS apps. The A9X CPU and 4GB of RAM of the iPad Pro might make it a real replacement to the MacBook Air for music production tasks.

The lack of serious office productivity apps on the iOS 9 platform means the iPad Pro is unlikely to compel professionals to forget about the Surface Book or the Surface Pro 4. Unless Apple uses an Intel (INTC) x86 processor for the next iPad Pro, the MacBook will remain Apple’s best hope to retain its appeal among business users.

Investors should admit now that the bigger potential of the iPad Pro really comes from creative design professionals and digital music practitioners, not from business users. In my own case, I am now considering buying the $799 iPad Pro (instead of the iPad Mini 4) when it becomes available here in the Philippines.

I still rate AAPL as a Buy for long-term purposes. As per the chart below, I Know First gives AAPL a bullish 1-year algorithmic forecast. The bright green +9.63 says AAPL’s market trend analysis favors it delivering a higher stock price after one year. The +0.24 is the predictability score that this algorithmic forecast will prove true. The higher the predictability score, the better it is.

I Know First has had success predicting the movement of Apple’ stock price in the past. In this one-year forecast from November 2nd, Apple had a bullish signal strength of 238 In accordance with the algorithm’s prediction, the stock price increased 14% during that time