Apple’s “Surprise and shine” event kicks off today, September 9, at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. BST, 10:30 p.m. IST) from Apple Park. It is the first September keynote led by new CEO John Ternus, and it is expected to bring the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, Apple’s first foldable iPhone (reportedly called iPhone Duo), Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, and new AirPods.
The Mac Observer team is covering the keynote live. Every announcement, price, and release date lands in the feed below as it happens, newest first, and you do not need to refresh the page. Our full stories on each product will be linked from the relevant update as they publish.
What to expect at the September 9 Apple event
- iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max: 2nm A20 Pro chip, variable-aperture main camera, smaller Dynamic Island, new dark cherry color, and a likely price increase.
- iPhone Duo: Apple’s first foldable, with a roughly 7.8-inch inner display, Touch ID instead of Face ID, Apple Pencil support, and a starting price near $2,000.
- Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4: new S-series chip, continuous heart-rate sensing, and a returning ceramic case option.
- AirPods 5: H3 chip, in ANC and non-ANC versions.
- Software: release dates for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27 and visionOS 27.
Not expected today: the standard iPhone 18, iPhone 18e and iPhone Air 2, which are reportedly moving to spring 2027, and any new Macs.
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How to watch the Apple event
Apple is streaming the keynote on its Events page, in the Apple TV app, and on YouTube. See our event time guide for start times in every major region.
Live updates
Pre-orders: Saturday, September 12. Reports now point to pre-orders opening at 12 a.m. PT on Saturday for the iPhone 18 Pro models, with in-store availability the following Friday, September 18. AirPods 5 are expected today in ANC and non-ANC versions; the camera-equipped AirPods have slipped to 2027.
Trade-in sweetener. Apple is reportedly loosening its trade-in grading starting today, so phones with minor cosmetic wear get a higher value instead of being bucketed with damaged devices. Expect Apple to lean on that during the keynote to soften the Pro price increase.
Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4: an AI recap of your day. Both watches are expected to add what reports call Ambient Sensing, which uses the microphone, GPS and other sensors to summarize meals, workouts, commutes and conversations without recording audio. Series 12 also brings back ceramic cases, and the Ultra 4 is said to push past last year’s 42-hour battery rating. Our Series 12 preview.
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iPhone Duo: white or dark blue, $1,999, and an October ship date. A last-minute leak lists two finishes for Apple’s foldable, with 256GB at $1,999 and top configurations near $3,000. The Duo is not expected to ship alongside the Pro models; October is the current target. Apple Pencil support is also reported. Everything we know about the iPhone Duo.
Smaller Dynamic Island, faster charging. A leaked video shows the iPhone 18 Pro’s Dynamic Island shrinking by roughly 20 percent, which lets iOS 27 run three Live Activities at once instead of two. Separately, iOS 27 code points to charging about a third faster than the iPhone 17 Pro.
John Ternus posted a teaser. Apple’s new CEO shared a short video of light hitting the edge of an iPhone and forming a hexagonal shape. The likeliest read is the variable-aperture main camera rumored for the Pro models, since a mechanical aperture opens and closes in exactly that pattern.
Colors, per Gurman: the iPhone 18 Pro lineup is expected in a dark cherry red that replaces last year’s Cosmic Orange, plus sky blue and silver. No black this year, if the report holds.
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Gurman’s final iPhone 18 Pro pricing: $100 more, not $300. Bloomberg reports the iPhone 18 Pro will start at $1,199, a $100 increase over the iPhone 17 Pro. That is well below the $200 to $300 jump some analysts had predicted, which suggests Apple is absorbing a chunk of the memory-cost increase itself.
The online Apple Store is down. Apple pulled its storefront offline a few hours before the keynote, the usual sign that product pages are being rebuilt for whatever is announced today. It should return after the event with the new lineup and pricing. More on the Store outage.
The keynote is getting closer. We’ll be back with the first announcements as soon as Apple goes live. Keep this page open; new updates load automatically.
Pre-orders and launch: because Friday falls on September 11, pre-orders are expected to open Saturday, September 12, with the new iPhones in stores on Friday, September 18. The open question is whether the iPhone Duo ships alongside the Pro models or trails them by a few weeks.
Software: Apple should confirm release dates for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27 and visionOS 27. Release candidates typically go to developers right after the keynote, with public releases the following week, likely Monday, September 14.
Wildcards: a smart home hub with a 7-inch display, a faster Apple TV 4K (an A19-class chip surfaced in a code leak this week) and a refreshed HomePod mini have all been rumored, but none are locked in for today. The home hub in particular is said to be waiting on Apple’s revamped Siri.
AirPods 5: references in the macOS 26.7 release candidate pointed to new AirPods with an H3 chip, in both active noise cancelling and non-ANC versions. The camera-equipped AirPods are reportedly pushed to 2027.
Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4: no big redesign this year, but a new S-series chip, a returning ceramic case option for Series 12, and an upgraded heart-rate sensor that collects data continuously through the day. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch SE 3 quietly went unavailable on Apple’s online store this morning, which usually signals a lineup shuffle.
What’s not expected today: the standard iPhone 18, the iPhone 18e and the iPhone Air 2 have all reportedly moved to spring 2027, so the fall lineup is just Pro, Pro Max and Duo. No Macs are expected either. The M6 MacBook Pro is likely to get its own event later this year, and the OLED iPad mini is tipped for October.
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The foldable: iPhone Duo. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports Apple will call its first foldable the iPhone Duo, not iPhone Ultra as earlier rumors suggested. Expect a book-style design with a roughly 5.5-inch outer display and 7.8-inch inner display, 4.5mm thickness when open, a Touch ID side button instead of Face ID, an A20 Pro chip, Apple Pencil support, and a starting price around $1,999 for 256GB, with higher tiers closer to $3,000. Here’s everything we know about the iPhone Duo so far.
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What to expect: iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. Reports point to a 2nm A20 Pro chip (around 18% faster and up to 30% more efficient than the A19 Pro), 12GB of RAM, a variable-aperture main camera with a new stacked sensor, a wider-aperture telephoto, a smaller Dynamic Island, and a simplified Camera Control button. New colors are said to include dark cherry, light blue and silver. The Pro Max is rumored to carry a 5,567 mAh battery. Pricing could climb $100 to $300 over the iPhone 17 Pro because of component costs.
A first for Apple: this is the first September keynote since John Ternus took over as CEO on September 1, with Tim Cook moving to executive chairman. Ternus has called today’s announcement a “huge launch,” and he’s expected to open the keynote himself rather than hand off to Cook.
How to watch: Apple is streaming the keynote on its Events page, in the Apple TV app, and on YouTube. No Apple device required. Viewers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney are watching after midnight on September 10. Full regional start times are in our event time guide.
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Welcome to The Mac Observer’s live coverage of Apple’s “Surprise and shine” event. The keynote starts at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. BST, 10:30 p.m. IST) from Apple Park. We’ll post every announcement here the moment it happens, with context from the TMO team. Updates appear at the top of this feed automatically.
