That’s a wrap!
And we’re done, stay tuned to Macworld for full coverage of all of today’s announcements!
So what will it cost?
The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 with 256GB of storage. Preorders start on October 16 and will begin shipping on October 23.
Dual camera for iPhone Duo
As expected, the iPhone Duo has a dual 48MP camera system that’s basically the same as the iPhone 17 and not as good as the one we just heard about in the iPhone 18 Pro. You don’t get telephoto, you don’t get variable aperture, and you’ll miss out on some of the newer features.
However, you can see a video of what you’re snapping on the front camera, and people can see what’s on the front screen too.
iPhone Duo battery life
Srouji explains optimizations and battery capacities that let users get up to 31 hours when using the inner display and 44 hours when using just the outer display, for a total of 24 hours per charge during a typical day.
Custom nano texture finish
Apple addresses the elephant in the room: the crease. Johny Srouji explains that Apple has developed a custom nanotexture finish that significantly reduces glare and reflections. The unique texture creates a perceptually flat matte surface that minimizes craft visibility and also feels premium to touch. During manufacturing Apple uses AI algorithms to precisely manage each individual hinge with its best fit housing to ensure perfect alignment.
iPhone Duo colors
Apple’s folding phone is available in two colors: white and night sky (dark blue).
Cutting-edge hinge design
Apple describes the hinge: “The central structural plane has support ribs for added stiffness. To make the frame even more rigid, the antenna splits are reinforced with high performance inserts. They’re made from ceramic fibers that are three times stronger than grade five titanium. Together these structural details make iPhone Duo feel exceptionally solid every time you use it.”
Will there be a crease? We’ll have to see.
iOS gets a folding redesign
Controls on the outer screen have been moved to the side of the screen, seamlessly transtitions to the inner display, and dynamically adjusts to the position its in. Apps have been redesigned to take advantage of the folding screen. Apps run side by side and can be paired for quick switching.
Here’s a picture of it closed:
Apple
One More Thing: iPhone Duo
The rumors are true: Apple’s first foldable phone is here with a widescreen design. Here it is:
Apple
New colors for Apple Watch
Apple Watch Series 12 comes in space gray, black, light gold, and dark bronze, as well as ceramic options in white and night blue. The Apple Watch Ultra comes in black and naturakl titanium. Both have the same starting prices as before.
Apple
Whoop, there it is
The new design of the Health app, Health Age, and the new Readiness feature are clearly are all clear responses to the recent success of Whoop and similar products, which all have these exact features. Once again it’s not clear which of these software features will be only for the new watches – it seems like they’re for all Apple Watches, and only the continuous heart rate stuff is restricted to the Series 12 and Ultra 4.
New Apple Watch features
The big new Apple Watch feature is a new health monitoring system that take continous heart rate readings to give users a better picture of their heath and enable completely new experiences. A new Readiness app can tell you when to push and when to hold back, while a redesigned Health app can provide a new Health Age. Live Rewind will record everything in your day and transcribes what was just said.
Another feature, Siri Recap, uses “ambient listening to take high level notes of your conversations like takeaways from a team meeting or a parent-teacher conference.” There’s also a new Siri Modular face to access your conversations and recaps.
AirPods lines are getting blurry
It sounds like they’re adding enough AirPods Pro features to the standard AirPods, and lowering the price enough, to make the upcoming “AirPods with cameras” the new AirPods Pro. Cameras will be the differentiating feature.
The ‘new’ Apple Watch
Looks like another year with the same Apple Watch design! This is what you get when one company doesn’t face serious competition. That’s now 12 generations in a row with essentially the same design, and only occasional minor changes: the last of these was the bump in screen size for the Series 10 two years ago. But the average user would struggle to spot the differences between the Series 12 and the Series 4.
AirPods 5 now have ANC for $129
Apple is tweaking its base AirPods lineup. The cheaper $129 model now has ANC and the higher-end model with a wireless charging case are $149. They’re not all that different, but feature “an even better audio experience with a new multi-port acoustic architecture and next generation adaptive EQ AirPods 5 deliver richer more detailed sound across a wider range of ear geometries.”
Apple
Higher prices starts at $100 more
The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the Pro Max starts at $1,299, a bump of $100 over the 17 series. Pre-order begin Saturday and start shipping nexxt Friday.
Smaller Dynamic Island
The new iPhone 18 Pro has a smaller Dynamic Island that now has space for three Live Activities at once, a large one in the middle and two smaller circles on either side.
Apple
Camera features on older iPhones?
Apple is describing updates to Photograhic Styles, shutter speeds and other features, but they’re not being clear about whether these new Pro camera controls will be available on any previous iPhones or not. Most of them could be.
Biggest camera improvement in years
48MP Fusion Camera with variable aperture that adjusts automatically based on the scene. When you’re in a darker environment, the aperture opens to let in around 50% more light, while night mode captures are faster with better quality.
Apple
45 hours of battery life!!
IPhone 18 Pro has a next generation vapor chamber that helps the system manage even more heat. It has three times the surface area as the one in iPhone 17 Pro. Deionized water is constantly cycled throughout the system for significantly improved thermals. Combined with the new chip’s efficiancy, you’ll get 36 hours on the iPhone 18 Pro and an absolutely insane 45 hours on the 18n Pro Max.
A20 Pro Chip
Apple’s newest iPhone chip has Apple’s latest six core CPU featuring two of our new super cores that are up to 20% faster and four efficiency cores, all integrated with neural accelerators that power low latency on device AI workloads as a significantly advanced GPU and a new version of the neural accelerators with 2x faster 8-bit floating point math.
Who needs a new iPhone?
So far, the iPhone 18 Pro pitch is all about how you should be excited for iOS 27 and now about why you would need or want a new iPhone.
iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max
A20 Pro with new CPU core and GPU core, and “massive advancements in the most important areas intelligence, performance, battery, and camera.”
New colors: Silver, Deep Black, Glacier (Light Blue), and Burgandy (Dark Cherry).
Not only that, you can write and edit with Siri virtually anywhere you type, like generating an email to your kids soccer coach while on the go. Plus Siri AI sounds incredible. That’s because iPhone 18 Pro takes advantage of our most advanced on-device model ever, which powers expressive voices. You can pick from multiple options, then customize the pace and expressivity.” But we’ve seen all this before.
Siri AI will have usage limits but “most iCloud+ plans” will offer increased access.
Intelligent personal hub
This isn’t a new product category but rather an explanation of what the iphone is: “First, you would want something that is always with you, deeply personal and able to bring intelligence to the moments when it matters most. You’d require a powerful processor that can run incredibly capable on-device models to quickly answer questions in the moment and pervasive networking to access knowledge and even more capable models in the cloud.
There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone.”
Jon is describing Apple Intellgence’s privacy and iPhone’s AI abiltities. “So today we’re going to take these experiences even further with the next generation of iPhone. And here it is.”
This is the opening!
A video montage of actors describing how a show or movie should open and then Tim Cook starts narrating the video of “our main character, no no no,. not me, that’s your guy.” And it’s John Ternus.
Here we go!
The music has faded and the blue Apple logo has given way to an iPhone 17 Pro camera, with a message, “The following was shot on iPhone.”
Apple start your engines!
We’ve got less than 10 minutes until we get out first look at Apple’s folding iPhone project! Get ready everyone!
30 minutes to go!
Get a snack and a drink and meet us back here at 10am PT/1pm ET for the start of the show!
No surprises at Surprise and Shine
It looks like Apple’s iPhone event will be filled with more Shine than Surprises. According to Mark Gurman’s somewhat playful tweet, Apple is holding back some rumored products that are supposedly ready to launch, including the touchscreen MacBook, Apple TV 4K, and HomePad smart home hub. As he quips, “don’t worry. It’s only September.” So you can probably expect at least one more event later this fall.
A few thoughts on phone colors (and fun)
For several years now I’ve complained about the fact that basic iPhones, despite costing less, come with much nicer colors than their Pro equivalents. Why can’t Pro users have fun too?
Perhaps Apple heard me, because last year’s Pro-exclusive Cosmic Orange was arguably Apple’s funnest color yet. (I’m using that word deliberately to prepare readers for the likely grammatical crimes of today’s Apple event.) But if the pre-launch rumors are true, that was only the precursor for a huge anti-fun announcement today.
The iPhone 18 Pro, according to our sources, will come in black, silver, light blue, and a charming burgundy branded as Dark Cherry. Less fun, arguably, than the green, blue, and lilac which the iPhone 17 will continue to offer (because its successor won’t arrive until the spring). But infinitely more fun than the poor iPhone Ultra/Duo, which is expected to come in just two colors: dark blue, and white. Despite starting at $2,000, and going all the way up to $3,000 if you want the top storage tiers.
The more you pay, the less fun you get. Make it make sense, Apple.
David Price / Foundry
So, about that Duo name…
It’s been pointed out in the Macworld offices that Microsoft wasn’t the first tech company to use the name Duo on a product. Apple itself had the PowerBook Duo, a line of laptops sold between 1992 and 1999. Which therefore predate the Surface Duo by the small matter of 28 years.
More recently, there was the (not terribly good) MagSafe Duo charger. And in a matter of hours, if Mark Gurman’s sources are correct, we will get the iPhone Duo.
Christopher Phin / Foundry
John Ternus teases the iPhone 18 Pro’s top feature
In a tweet to followers ahead of the big event, new CEO John Ternus shared a 12-second video of a beam of light that first shines at the viewer and then pans down to shine on what appears to be a camera lens. It’s hard to see it as anything other than a tease for the iPhone 18 Pro’s rumored variable aperture camera. At any rate, it’s certainly a departure from Tim Cook’s keynote messages, which were filled with little more than vague excitement.
X/@johnternus
Apple Pencil on an iPhone?
Apple has never allowed you to use your Apple Pencil on anything other than an iPad, but the folding iPhone could change that. According to Mark Gurman, the iPhone Ultra/Duo will indeed support Apple Pencil, so you’ll be able to doodle and draw on the screen just like you can on your tablet. It’s not clear whether both screens will support Apple’s stylus or just the inner one, though.
iPhone 18 Pro price hike might not be so bad
We’ve been bracing for an iPhone price increase ever since Apple hiked prices on Macs and iPads by hundreds of dollars in June. A new report from Mark Gurman claims they won’t be as bad as that: Apparently the new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will cost $100 more than the current models, in line with previous price hikes.
The Apple Store is down. Something is coming
As part of the usual pre-event ritual, Apple has taken down its online store. “We’re making updates to the Apple Store,” the text reads. “Check back soon.”
It’s hard to believe that a company with Apple’s resources needs five hours to update an electronic storefront, but by this point it’s become a tradition more than anything else. And maybe there’s some element of kindly advice to customers: “Please don’t buy anything this morning, it’ll be outdated by lunchtime.”
Apple
Spotted: Hardware IDs for new Apple products!
It’s not exactly a secret that Apple is about to announce a bunch of new hardware products, but it’s still surprising to see the evidence in black and white before the event begins. But sure enough, dozens of new Apple hardware identifiers have been spotted on the company’s services backend.
It’s important to note that these won’t necessarily all appear today; the iPhones and Apple Watches, for sure, but the Macs and iPads are likely to be delayed until later in the fall. (We don’t know for sure if there will be an October/November event. They may just appear in a press release.) The real enigma, however, is HomeAccessory17,1 and its two siblings. Could that be the much-anticipated smart home hub? We’ll find out in a few hours.
Breaking: Folding iPhone will be called… Duo
Forget iPhone Ultra, forget iPhone Fold… the latest breaking news is that Apple’s first ever folding handset will be called the iPhone Duo. That’s according to Mark Gurman’s sources, and he’s generally well informed when it comes to information like this.
Gurman made his last-minute prediction in an article (subscription required) this morning. He also claimed the device will start at $2,000, have a short-and-wide design, and go on sale in October, later than the other new iPhones. But we knew all that already. The name is the real bombshell.
Some may accuse Apple of copying Microsoft, whose Surface Duo was a pioneer in this field. On the other hand, maybe Microsoft should have kept that brand going; the line was discontinued nearly two years ago. The Duo brand also goes rather nicely with Neo, as in MacBook. And, please note, it was one of the options mentioned by my colleague Emma Rowley earlier this week.
More on this story here.
Don’t forget the AirPods
They’ve got slightly lost in the iPhone Ultra hype, but Apple is also expected to launch the AirPods 5 today. These aren’t the camera-equipped models you may have seen doing the rounds after Apple accidentally leaked them (they’re not expected to arrive until next year). Instead, the main new feature of the AirPods 5 will be improved active noise cancellation, likely made possible by the inclusion of a new H3 chip. Bloomberg leaker Mark Gurman yesterday confirmed this–based on his sources, at any rate.
It’s the big day!
After months of speculation, it all comes down to this. Today’s the day for the first ever folding iPhone, and so much more.
Welcome to Macworld’s live blog for the September 9 Apple event. The event itself kicks off at 10 am PT, and is likely to last around 70 minutes. But our coverage here will last throughout the day. We’ll be bringing you breaking news and last-minute rumors for the next 9 hours or so, before bringing you the announcements (along with our expert analysis) as they happen. Then of course there will be masses of discussion of the new products after Apple’s livestream ends.
It’s going to be fun. Enjoy the ride!
More cases offer a glimpse at the new iPhone designs
Casemaker dbrand has added cases and skins for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max and the iPhone Ultra, in case you want to get a jump on buying one. This doesn’t necessarily confirm anything about the new phones other than the company thinks the rumors are pretty solid, since the design and colors they show almost perfectly match the reports we’ve been reading for months.
New Apple TV could be bigger than expected
We’ve been hearing reports that a new Apple TV 4K is on the way for a while. We’re not expecting it to be much of an update, but the latest information in the rumor mill suggets that it could be bigger than we thought. According to Aaron Perris on X, the new Apple TV has an identifier of AppleTV18,1, which indicates that it will have an processor in the A19 family, making it one of the most powerful devices in Apple’s lineup and much fasterl than A15 in the current model.
What does that mean for AI features? Gaming? Smart home? We’ll find out soon.
It’s gotta be the shoes
It won’t just be the iPhone 18 Pro with the hot new color this year. New Balance is feeling the Dark Cherry vibes with the release of its New Balance 990v4 in a new Monarch Burgundy option. They’re not quite the 992s that Steve Jobs wore, but someone at New Balance has clearly been reading the iPhone rumors.
Foundry
What’s going on with the Apple Watch SE 3?
With less than a day to go before the keynote kicks off, there’s an interesting development concerning the Apple Watch SE 3. Over at Apple.com, every possible combination is listed as “currently unavailable” for delivery or pickup. And if you order one at Amazon, you won’t get a delivery date. That’s strange.
For comparison, you can order a Series 11 or Ultra 3 without a problem. I’ve been covering Apple events for many years and have never seen an entire product spontaneously disappear from the store less than a day before the event is supposed to start. I don’t know what to make of it.
Chris Martin / Foundry
More Apple Watch features revealed?
A code spelunker has discovered a few clues hidden in the iOS 27 beta that point to new Apple Watch features. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking, but the Series 12 watch will reportedly get an updated heart-rate sensor as well as a significant storage boost to 128GB. Apple last updated its heart-rate sensor with a 3rd-gen model with the Series 6, so a new sensor is definitely overdue. As far as the storage goes, it’s probably related to on-device Apple Intelligence models, because I don’t know why anyone would need that much storage on their watch.
Brand-new Readiness app coming to watchOS 27
Mark Gurman reports that Apple is planning to launch a new Readiness app alongside the new Apple Watches tomorrow “as a variant of the Vitals app.” The Vitals app on Apple Watch brings together key health metrics such as heart rate, sleep, and blood oxygen to give users a deeper understanding of their daily health, so this app will presumably use similar information. Gurman says this new app will “better compete with software from Whoop & Oura” along with improved heart-rate sensing on the new watches.
This year’s hot color: Burgundy
Rumors strongly suggest that the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will be available in a classy new Dark Cherry finish: a rich burgundy wine color. (If that’s not your bag, don’t worry. There will also be more prosaic dark gray and lightish blue options.) We expect this color to be wildly popular, much as Cosmic Orange was last year. But Apple won’t have the burgundy phone market all to itself.
Ever since the dark-red iPhone rumors started, Android manufacturers have been falling over themselves to copy Cupertino’s colorway, from the Poco F9 Ultra and Tecno Camon Slim 5G to the Huawei Pura X View and Xiaomi 18 Fold. As Tech Advisor reports, burgundy is the new orange. And pre-emptive plagiarism is the new originality.
Poco, Macworld, Huawei
One More Thing… but what?
“We have great respect for these words,” said Tim Cook in 2017, “and we don’t use them lightly.” Those words, of course, were One More Thing.
That little phrase has signalled the arrival of some of Apple’s most iconic products and services, including the iMac G4, the MacBook Pro, FaceTime, the Apple Watch, Apple Music, and the iPhone X. Will it be uttered this year, and if so, what will it herald?
We discussed this on the podcast, and figured it would be a nice moment if new CEO John Ternus got the chance to utter those immortal words as part of his debut. (Debut as overall event host, that is. He’s spoken in individual segments before now.) The most obvious product to get the One More Thing treatment is the iPhone Ultra, but a bigger surprise would be the arrival of Apple’s long-rumored smart home hub. Either would work.
But Macworld readers put forward other ideas. At the less serious end, jimrock reckoned “It’d be really sick if he announced a $2,000 monitor stand” while Adam Moran proposed “One more thing: Now shipping iPhones with a charger.” Hashtag courage.
Moving on to things that could happen (but won’t), Rob K put forward “One more thing: iPhone Air 2 with 6,000 mAh silicon carbon battery, three cameras, and no stupid fold.” And Tower Lord suggested “AI-driven smart glasses. Minus the creep factor found in Meta glasses. Instead, true spatial computing. The ultimate personal computer.” Get rid of the AI part and we’re on board.
And finally, a note of sanity from Mike: “One more thing was Steve’s thing. Can we please stop measuring every CEO against Steve and let them be their own leaders?”
Apple
All eyes on the crease
When Apple (allegedly) unveils its first folding iPhone tomorrow, Greg Joswiak or whomever gets the honor of announcing the phone on the stream, will talk about the displays, interface, cameras, design, and anything else Apple feels is worth highlighting. What they probably won’t spend a lot of time talking about is the crease.
Ever since Samsung’s first folding phone arrived, the center display crease has been an issue. It’s gotten better over the years, but it’s still the biggest hurdle for new customers to overcome. Even on the newest phones, you can see it when it’s opened and feel a little valley while using it. It’s flies in the face of Apple’s pursuit of perfection and likely the reason why we haven’t gotten a folding iPhone until now.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Apple had devised a way to overcome the crease with a combination of ultra-thin glass (UTG) and an optically clear adhesive that allows “the folding area to be locally thinned at the bending axis to improve bendability.” Samsung’s newest flagship phone features a display with a 60-micrometer UTG layer, which is likely a similar material to what Apple will use.
No folding phone has been able to completely eliminate the crease. Will Apple be the first?
Luke Baker
John Ternus and the honeymoon period
Tim Cook chose an interesting moment to resign from the CEO hotseat: September 1, a week before the biggest event of Apple’s year. It’s understood that he did this so that John Ternus could have the fun and credit of announcing the iPhone Ultra himself, and begin his reign on a positive note. Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has referred to this as a “massive tailwind” for the incoming CEO.
But Gurman has plenty more to say about recent squabbles and politicking at the top of Apple’s hierarchy, and there could be some complications for the new boss. Read the Macalope’s latest article for all the dirt and some very convoluted metaphors.
iPhone Ultra, or iPhone Fold?
Sad to say for an event with the word surprise in its tagline, but there don’t seem to be many mysteries left concerning the foldable iPhone. With one notable exception: its name.
In the early days, most pundits referred to the rumored device as the iPhone Fold for obvious, logical reasons. But in the spring, we all started calling it the iPhone Ultra, even though, features-wise, that doesn’t entirely make sense. And with just one day to go until the announcement, case makers still can’t decide between the two options, with some plumping for Fold and others for Ultra in their pre-launch marketing materials.
And this all assumes that Apple won’t pull a last-minute switcheroo and go for iPhone Duo or iPhone Folio instead.
Over on our sister site Tech Advisor, Emma Rowley discusses the thorny question of the foldable iPhone’s name.
Will you fold?
Last year, the iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air competed for the title of Apple’s flagship handset. The Air was certainly more interesting, but the Pro Max was a far better specced, more powerful phone (not to mention more expensive). But this year there will only be one clear winner: the iPhone Ultra. Will you yield to temptation and pay what’s likely to be more than $2,000 for Apple’s first foldable smartphone?
One commenter on our YouTube channel is leaning towards no.
“If I was purchasing an iPhone and an iPad at the same time, then I would consider the Fold as it might work out cheaper than buying two separate devices,” writes christopherclarke6184. “But I am happy with my iPad M4 and iPhone 17 Pro Max so won’t be upgrading for a while… unless Apple has something special I may need. I’ll still be watching the show, though.”
Apple will be hoping for strong interest from the early adopter crowd, but given that this is an entirely new market for the company and a very high price, moderate sales may be enough in the short term.
Who is John Ternus?
One big difference this year is that the main host will be Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus, rather than Tim Cook. Ternus is a relative unknown to members of the public, and Apple fans will be keen to see how he handles hosting duties. Will he be a showman, like Steve Jobs? Quietly professional, like Cook? Or something new and unique to himself?
That’s not to say we’ve got no idea how he’ll carry himself in a presentation. As head of hardware Ternus spoke at multiple keynotes and product launches in the past, including the iPhone reveal last fall. His manner was very positive, with lots of superlatives, while being unafraid to delve into technical detail. But acting as main host is a different assignment, so we may see a new side to him on Wednesday.
In the meantime, read Alex Blake’s piece on the new boss, in which he describes Ternus as “the perfect CEO for this Apple era.”
Apple
Folding iPhone color options will be unique
Our sources report that Apple will offer the iPhone Ultra in just two colors for its debut. The first is silver, which we expect from a new iPhone, but the other is a little different: Dark Blue. Apple regularly offers its iPhones in various shades of blue, of course, but it’s rare for a brand new model to arrive in anything other than black and white.
No time for Tim
According to Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter, Tim Cook won’t make an appearance in this year’s keynote. While he reports that he will be at Apple Park for the event, Cook has officially and completely handed the reins to Ternus, who will be the face of the Surprise and Shine event.
Surprise and Shine iPhone event: Podcast preview
On the newest Macworld Podcast, Michael Simon and Jason Cross talk about what to expect at Apple’s Surprise and Shine iPhone event. What iPhones will Apple release? How will John Ternus do in his first keynote as Apple CEO? And will there be a “One more thing”? Get ready for the event by tuning in to the podcast.
Cases, cases everywhere
The iPhone Ultra doesn’t exist yet, but you can find cases all over social media. It’s worth noting that case manufacturers don’t get information from Apple ahead of events, but they pay very close attention to the rumors and some probably have their own sources in the supply chain. Are they real? We’ll know in just a couple days.
Surprise? What surprise?
Apple has given this week’s showcase the tagline “Surprise and Shine.” But what’s the big surprise? Apple’s September events are among its most predictable, almost always revolving around new iPhones and new Apple Watches, and sometimes new AirPods.
- September 2025: iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods
- September 2024: iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods
- September 2023: iPhones, Apple Watches
- September 2022: iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods
- September 2021: iPhones, Apple Watches, iPads
Is John Ternus going to spring a surprise in 2026? After asking this question on TikTok we’re unconvinced by the idea of an Apple alarm clock (sorry), but another reader’s proposal of a “tabletop Pixar light robot personal assistant with Siri” is a little more plausible. That sounds a lot like the rumored smart-home hub which Apple has been working on for years, and could make an appearance this week. It could even turn up as One More Thing at the end and make for a fun encore.
But ultimately the most likely outcome is that, as far as Apple is concerned, the widely expected foldable iPhone counts as the surprise. To those of us who live in the Apple rumor bubble the iPhone Ultra (or iPhone Fold) now looks like virtually a sure thing for Wednesday’s presentation, but to the wider community it’s far less well known. And officially, of course, it doesn’t even exist. Surprise!
We (probably) know the new colors
Apple loves to launch at least one new color for each iPhone generation. Partly this allows the company to prune the colors which sold poorly the year before and experiment with alternatives, but the main advantage is that it allows customers to show off the fact they’ve got a new phone, even if the design is otherwise the same. Those who bought the iPhone 17 Pro in Cosmic Orange last year got some major bragging rights.
Perhaps surprisingly, the wildly popular Cosmic Orange is expected to be dropped from the range this year. The two new finishes are a little less garish: a dark-red/burgundy wine color, expected to be branded as Dark Cherry, and a light blue. Macworld exclusively revealed these colors in the summer.
If you’d like to see more of the new finishes, take a look at this leaked video, which appears to show demo models of the iPhone 18 Pro (in blue) and 18 Pro Max (in Dark Cherry).
iPhone pre-orders might start on Saturday
Generally, Apple opens up pre-orders for all the new iPhones and Apple Watches on the Friday following the Apple event at 5am PT. However, with 9/11 falling on Friday this year, it’s likely that Apple will delay the launch one day out of respect for the anniversary. Pre-orders instead are expected to begin on Saturday at midnight PT.
No iPhone 18 this week
In case you haven’t been following the rumors, Apple isn’t expected to launch a new iPhone 18 this week. That means the iPhone 17 will be on shelves alongside the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus for another six months. This would be the first time (other than the budget SE and e models) that Apple has spilt the new iPhones into separate launches and could create some serious FOMO for annual updaters.
Read our 100% real keynote leak*
Just like last year, we’ve gotten our hands on Apple’s iPhone event keynote script ahead of the big reveal, and we’re sharing it all with you: the bad jokes, clever marketing, outrageous prices, and big surprises. Read it all before it happens.
*May not be real
Follow along with all the latest updates
Welcome to the Surprise and Shine live blog! You don’t need to wait till Wednesday to get up to speed on everything Apple’s releasing. Over the next two days, we’ll share rumors, features, roundups, thoughts, reader comments, and lots more. Stay right here for everything you need to know.
