Apple's Event Is Tomorrow, John Ternus's First as Chief Executive. Only the Foldable Would Count as a Surprise
Surprise and Shine begins at 10am Pacific on Wednesday at Apple Park, a week after Tim Cook handed over. What is confirmed, which is almost nothing, and what is expected: a foldable iPhone above two thousand dollars, two Pro models and two watches.
Outspoken Digest Technology Desk
Tuesday, September 8, 2026/3 min read
Apple's September event takes place on Wednesday 9 September at 10am Pacific time, 9pm in the Gulf, at Apple Park in Cupertino. The invitation, sent on 26 August to media and to iCloud users who subscribe to Apple's announcements, carried two words: Surprise and Shine. It streams on apple.com, YouTube and the Apple TV app.
That is the full list of what Apple has confirmed. Everything below is reporting, most of it consistent across the outlets that follow the company's supply chain, and none of it official until a slide appears on screen.
The man on stage
The one certain novelty is the presenter. John Ternus became chief executive on 1 September, with Tim Cook moving to executive chairman, in a transition announced in April and completed after fifteen years of Cook's tenure. Ternus is a mechanical engineer who has spent twenty-five years at the company and ran hardware engineering since 2021, which means the products on Wednesday's stage were built under him before he was promoted to present them. It is his first launch as chief executive, eight days into the job.
What is expected
A foldable iPhone. The device most reports call the iPhone Ultra is described as a book-style fold with a cover screen of about 5.5 inches opening to something between 7.6 and 7.8, a dual rear camera without a telephoto lens, Touch ID in the side button rather than Face ID, MagSafe, and a price above two thousand dollars, according to TechCrunch. It arrives more than five years after Samsung's first foldable. Whether it runs a chip shared with the Mac line, as one report has it, is the kind of detail that will be confirmed or corrected on the day.
iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. MacRumors expects both, built on an A20 Pro chip made on a two-nanometre process, with a variable-aperture main camera and otherwise a design close to last year's. Price rises are anticipated, attributed to the memory shortage that has been raising the cost of everything with a chip in it, the same shortage covered in our report on server prices. No standard iPhone 18 this autumn; the cheaper models are reported to move to a spring launch.
Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4. Expected, with little detail.
Possibly new HomePods with Siri built on Apple's newer AI models, AirPods with cameras for what is being called visual intelligence, a home hub and an updated Apple TV. Release dates for iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate will be announced whatever else happens.
How to read the event
Two things are worth watching beyond the hardware. The first is the AI story. Apple has spent two years being told it is behind, and Wednesday is the first time a new chief executive will say what the company thinks about that in public; the HomePod and AirPods rumours are really rumours about whether Siri has caught up. The second is price. A phone above two thousand dollars is a statement about who Apple thinks its customers are in a year when the luxury industry is losing its middle, a shift described in our report on luxury's shrinking customer base. Apple has never been a luxury company in the fashion sense, but a foldable at that price is priced like one.
We will report what is announced on Wednesday night. Until then, the rule for reading coverage is the usual one: if a specification is described as expected, reported or rumoured, it is; if it comes with a price in dollars to the cent, someone has guessed.
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