Apple has sent out invites today for a special event on Wednesday 9 September at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, which is 8:00 p.m. in Nairobi. Press are invited in person to the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park in Cupertino, and Apple is streaming it on apple.com and the Apple TV app, with YouTube as well. The invite says “Surprise and shine” over a glowing Apple logo.
The date is the one we expected when we previewed the event earlier this month.
No Affordable iPhone this year
Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone 18 Pro Max, plus its first foldable, which leakers call the iPhone Ultra. The plain iPhone 18 is not one of them. Apple has split the line-up across two launches, and the iPhone 18, the iPhone 18e and the iPhone Air 2 are expected around March 2027.
The first launch under John Ternus
This is also the first Apple product event with someone other than Tim Cook running the company. Apple announced in April that John Ternus, its senior vice president of hardware engineering, becomes chief executive on 1 September, eight days before the event, with Cook moving to executive chairman.
What is expected on stage
All three phones should run the A20 Pro, the first iPhone chip built on TSMC’s 2nm process. We are expecting a bigger camera bump on the Pro models, a dark cherry colour according to leaks, and prices up to $300 above the iPhone 17 Pro.
The foldable is the part nobody has seen. Leaks describe a book-style phone with a cover screen of about 5.3 to 5.5 inches and a 7.8-inch inner display, Touch ID instead of Face ID, and two 48-megapixel rear cameras with no telephoto lens. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman puts the starting price above $2,000, about KES 259,000 before freight, duty and grey-market margin.
Apple Watch Series 12, an Apple Watch Ultra 4 and new AirPods are also expected, along with release dates for iOS 27.
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