Apple has set its event for Wednesday, September 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific, under the tagline “Surprise and shine”, and MacRumors lists six products as most likely to appear: the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, the first foldable iPhone, an Apple Watch Series 12 with a ceramic case option, an Apple Watch Ultra 4, and two AirPods 5 models with and without active noise cancellation. Mark Gurman has been reading the invitation artwork for clues, and takes the light behind the logo as a nod to the mechanical aperture expected on the Pro Max and the sky blue as a possible new Pro colour. The Ultra 4's additions are mostly satellite: Apple Maps over satellite, and sending and receiving photos in Messages the same way.
The foldable is the model that gives things up. 9to5Mac counts four capabilities it will lack against the cheaper Pro: the variable aperture camera, whose components are expected to be too large for the thin body, a telephoto lens, leaving it with Main and Ultra Wide only, Face ID, replaced by Touch ID because there was not room for the sensors on two displays, and the best battery life in the lineup, which stays with the Pro Max and its reported ten percent larger cell. That is the first flagship iPhone in years without Face ID. Whether the trade is worth it is the question the keynote has to answer, and it arrives beside a watch whose headline change is a ceramic case.