UBS analyst praises new MacBook Pros and approaching clouds

The sun had not even set on Tuesday when UBS analyst Maynard Um expressed his pleasure over Apple's new MacBook Pros.

"The MacBook Pro refresh positions Apple well heading into the education and back to school spending seasons," said Um, adding that Macs are still a critical part of Apple's growth, and that most financial expectations for the company could prove conservative.

Um is expecting something else on top of the hardware, or over it really. In the note he reiterated his firm's view that Apple is working on its very own cloud service or services.

His forecast: "We envision a service that allows access to media-focused content of iTunes, user-generated content of MobileMe and social networking integration from any Apple product," meaning Maynard sees Apple-branded clouds on the horizon, and those -- he thinks -- will lead to the sale of more Apple hardware.

Um maintained his "Buy" rating on Apple shares and his price target of $280.

[via The Mac Observer]
Share