08/09/2016 World Business Report

But the news. Sally has more business.

But with more than a billion iPhones sold, can the latest version

recharge a flagging formula for Apple?

Sony reboots the PlayStation as it prepares to do battle with the Xbox

Hello and a warm welcome to World Business Report.

Also coming up: The latest trade data signals good news

We start in San Francisco, where Apple has unveiled

It's water resistant, with a faster processor

and better camera, more memory and improved battery life.

The big change, which was widely rumoured in advance,

is that Apple is doing away with the traditional headphone jack

to encourage buyers to invest in expensive wireless headphones.

Apart from that, say the critics, it's the same old formula

As of this summer, Apple has sold more than a billion iPhones since it

launched the first model almost a decade ago.

In the three months to June they were down 15% on last year.

The smartphone market is slowing down, but Apple is also losing

market share to cheaper versions from Chinese manufacturers.

And it has failed to come up with new types of product to make

Apple hopes new versions of its watch, also announced

But some say Tim Cook is failing to keep up the pace of innovation

set by his predecessor, the late Steve Jobs.

Then there is the growing scrutiny of the company's tax affairs,

culminating in a $14.5 billion demand from the EU last week.

We'll be talking about some of this in a moment.

First, our tech reporter Dave Lee was at the iPhone 7 launch and has

Here we have it. The new iPhone seven. This one is in the jet black

colour. There are few improvements. One of them is better camera

technology, which stabilises in a way it did before. But the main

thing people will notice is for the first time he will notice there is

no headphone jack on the device. This has made it easier for them to

make it more water resistant and dust resistant, but there is nowhere

to put your headphones. You have a couple of choices. One is to have

headphones that go into the lightning port. He may have used

that to charge your phone in the past. You can now buy headphones

that go into there. There's also an adaptor that will change or

headphones to into there. A little bit ugly, though. Apple also want

you to buy these, the new wireless pods. They look very much like the

old earphones but of course our wireless. They just pop into your

ears and connect directly to your phone in a way they promise is much

simpler than using Bluetooth, because I find Bluetooth very

difficult. This will retail at $159 which I think puts them a bit at

risk of someone coming up to you and pinching them out of your ear. We

will see if that happens. But this is the new development for the

iPhone seven. Very interesting. Gavin Clarke is

senior editor at an online website. Talk us through the new phone and

the air pods and all of the various bits and bobs. You think it will

boost flagging iPhone sales? It is difficult to say. It is a very

saturated market at the moment, as you noted. Apple's on sales have

been falling after record-setting highs last year. This year sales

have slumped and of course there have been losing market share to

their number one competitor Android running phone, Samsung. Will people

want to go with cordless earphones? It is a big unknown at the moment, a

big risk. I was going to say, is that a problem, the fact that this

jackal and be there any more, so those expensive headsets? -- new

jacks. There will be a socket for the phone that will allow you to

plug your expensive headphones into that, but what they want you to do

is buy those expensive earbuds and that is pretty much what Apple do.

They will sell the watch but you have to get the phone to make it

work properly. It has worked successfully so far. One of the

other big trouble and is it is really expensive, so in markets like

India and China where they have very good alternatives that are really

cheap, it's a hard sell. Will the carriers, the middlemen, as it were,

will be heavily subsidised this iPhone seven so we are encouraged to

update our already pretty decent smartphones? I think the carriers

will have reservations. I can the days of the early iPhone, people

liked it because it was huge growth. Now we are looking at a saturated

market and people will look for something unusual and identities are

determined as to whether these earphones will make people spend the

money. -- undetermined. Carriers might not want to do a massive

subsidy, which means you are willing to upgrade. Yes. For all the talk of

India and China this is for the developed states and maybe the

Western European market. Thank you very much. I am sure we will talk

about it all day. It's also been a big night

for another technology giant. Sony has launched the latest version

of its gaming console, the PlayStation 4 Pro,

as well as a new slimmer version Will the re-boot give Sony the edge

over Microsoft's Xbox as they battle Michelle Fleury was at

the launch event in New York. She sent this report. The

PlayStation is an important part of Sony's future so there was plenty of

interest in the launch of its newest games consoles. The big on Vale was

the PlayStation four Pro, high dynamic for a sharper and clearer

picture. -- the big unveil. And there was a slimmer, cheaper model

of the PS4. One of the features of the PlayStation four Pro is for us

to future proof ourselves. Every industry trend says the great

majority of televisions that will be sold over the coming years will be

4K. So we are setting ourselves up to provide a longer and happier

future for PlayStation for as a platform. This is the first time

Sony has two consoles on sale with different graphic capabilities. Will

it cause problems for developers? Does it make the process more

complicated? Not really. We always try to push our resolution as far as

we can and now we can reach that potential on PlayStation as well.

Absent was any mention of Blu-ray technology, but the PlayStation four

Pro will be able to stream 4K video. We've always been very clear right

from day one that PlayStation four has been conceived and executed as a

gaming platform. Sony hopes there is enough to persuade hard-core gamers

to upgrade and help them beat competition from Microsoft.

Let's talk about China. Some encouraging news when it comes to

trade figures. Rico Hizon is following

the story for us. New gadgets, exciting. Tell us about

China. There are some signs that the Chinese economy may be turning the

corner and it made the month of data. But analysts are quite

positive about the numbers. It is for the month of August. Imports

have risen by 1.5%. The first expansion in 22 months. This

suggests the demand could be begin up. As for exports, they fell by

2.8%. Less than market expected. As we know, Beijing has been its --

aggressively pushing for domestically led growth as it tries

to shift the way from export led expansion. If you take a look at the

trends, mainland exports have fell for 13 out of 30 months due to

sluggish demand and weak commodity prices. Imports have been in a long

slump, falling since late 2014. Thank you so much.

In other news: US firm Liberty Media has confirmed

it is buying control of Formula 1 for $4.4 billion.

It's taking over the stake currently held by private equity group CVC.

Bernie Ecclestone will remain as chief executive, but Chase Carey,

vice-chairman of 21st Century Fox, will become the new chairman.

Liberty Media has stakes in sports and entertainment businesses

including the Atlanta Braves baseball team.

It is part of the world's largest TV and broadband company Liberty

A lot more on that story on our website. Markets are pretty mixed,

but the news about China trade boosted stocks in Asia. See you