Apple has several 'long term' value drivers coming from WWDC
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With the initial dust settling after Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) kicked off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Wall Street analysts have started weighing in on how investors should evaluate the potential benefits from the company's announcements.
At Needham & Co., analyst Laura Martin said that the "right way to evaluate Apple" is by looking at what she called the lifetime value per user [LTV]. Martin said that Apple's (AAPL) move to its M1 and new M2 Apple Silicon chips are key to driving the company's values higher because they allow Apple (AAPL) to "integrate its hardware across devices and to innovate its software features faster."
Some analysts said that new MacBooks using the M2 chip that Apple (AAPL) showed off on Monday are already showing signs of becoming hit products for the company.
Martin, who has a buy rating and $170-a-share target price on Apple's (AAPL) stock, said the company's hardware integrations add the most long-term value to the company because if a customer replaces their iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac computer and iPad over a five year period, "swapping out of any one device along the way makes all other iOS devices less powerful until those are also replaced."
With regards to software, Martin said Apple's (AAPL) M1 and M2 chips are allowing the company to engage in faster innovation than has so far been possible.
Martin said adding that features such as allowing iOS users to collaborate on documents in real time, giving parents the ability to set limitations that can be transferred to their children's multiple devices, and setting up Apple Pay to allow for consumers to make four payments for a purchase are key to the company's long-term value. Such innovations, "both attracts new users to the iOS ecosystems and locks existing customers into the iOS ecosystem longer," Martin said. 
In Martin's opinion, the biggest surprises to come from Apple's (AAPL) developers gathering were the things that didn't get any mention at all: Nothing about Apple TV, no new privacy crackdowns and no mention of anything related to augmented or artificial reality.
The AR issue was seen by some analysts as the subject of a potential upcoming event that Apple (AAPL) might have planned on the technology.