Apple's WWDC: Facebook, Others Further Along with Machine Learning, Says Piper

Shares of Apple (AAPL) today closed down 1.49, or 1.5%, at 97.34, following the company's developer conference in San Francisco earlier today, and the Street is just now catching up with some research views on the matter. Highlights of the presentations included new features for the company's Apple Watch smartwatch, such as handwriting recognition; enhancements to the iOS software of the iPhone and iPad to allow for integration of third-party apps; and several "machine learning" functions, such as an ability to automatically have an iPhone perform image recognition tasks on one's photos collection. There were no new hardware announcements, despite some users pining for updates to the MacBook Pro laptop line. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster reiterates an Overweight rating, and a 153 price target, writing that "the event was largely incremental and a warm-up for new products in the fall." "The two biggest announcements were opening up Siri and Messaging to iOS developers and adding Apple Pay to the browser (Mac and iOS)," he believes.