What To Expect From Apple's Holiday Quarter

Thanksgiving is a mere few days away, which means the unofficial countdown toward Christmas can begin. With that, investors can now also being the unofficial countdown to tracking holiday sales.

Joanna Stern, a technology columnist for Wall Street Journal was a guest on CNBC's "Squawk Alley" to discuss Apple Inc. AAPL holiday expectations.

According to Stern, Apple's Airpods could prove to be an excellent stocking-stuffer given its low cost — at least by Apple's standards — of $159. The only problem is that Apple delayed the release of the device, and it has yet to be seen if it will even be available in time for the holiday.

Likely Not A Production Issue

Stern noted that it is likely Apple is facing some sort of technical issue with the Airpod, since if it was a production issue, the company could have at the very least released a limited number of devices to the market.

Farhad Manjoo, a tech columnist with the New York Times, jumped in and said that not being able to sell the Airpods is not a huge problem, but still a problem nonetheless.

"It's sort of one of these accumulations of problems we have seen from Apple over the last couple of years."

Manjoo and Stern both agreed that the review model of the Airpod they received works just fine and are of good enough quality.