Apple Event 2026

I heard lots of oooohs and ahhhs from the in-person crowd when Apple announced that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will go up to 2TB of storage. I wonder if all of those people were ready to pony up 2,000 bones?

I assume everyone’s already locked onto the purchase page for the crossbody strap, right? But seriously: Apple’s keynote has been over only a few minutes, is there anything you saw that made you immediately go, “yep, that one, I will have it please and thank you?” For me I think it’s the AirPods Pro 3. I’m close to sold on the Watch Series 11, though I have some worries about 5G and battery life. The phones... we’ll see. What’s on your shopping list? Anything so far?

This kind of feels like Apple is forcing me to the titanium iPhone Air. Apple switched to titanium for the iPhone 15 Pro two years ago, and it was noticeably lighter than the aluminum iPhone Pros that came before it. Why ditch titanium here?

The company said it’s building neural accelerators into each GPU core to prime users’ iPhones for intense AI workloads. It’s part of Apple’s bid to stay competitive in the AI race.

There is a lot of new Apple tech in the super-thin iPhone Air — Apple’s talking about the work it had to do on everything from the modem to the chip to make the phone this small. Check out the images below for an x-ray of the camera array, which is seriously crammed in there. Apparently it’s a “plateau,” not a camera bump.

New Watch Series 11, new Watch SE 3, new Watch Ultra 3. I’m due for an upgrade, and am thinking the Series 11 is probably the one for me? That 42 hours of Ultra battery does sound good, though. Check out the stories and the bentos, tell me which does it for you!

They look good! We’ll have to see how that “world’s best ANC” claim holds up, though. Check out Tom’s story for more, and here’s the bento box with all the details:

And Apple CEO Tim Cook says there’s “a hands-on area” at the end, so, you know, hardware confirmed. Go read our liveblog, which is way ahead of all the streams! And also more fun.

I’m betting we’ll get: iPhone 17s, iPhone Air. New Watches, new AirPods. (I am oddly more excited about new AirPods than any other device this year.) From what Bloomberg and others have reported, there might be a big focus on cases and accessories. I’m not expecting much Siri talk, and I don’t think we’ll see a new Vision Pro or even a new iPad, though both have been rumored to be possibilities.

Jake says: “A cool day here in Cupertino. It’s packed and we’re making our way into the venue.” Follow along on our live blog!

This is the iPhone event, so obviously Apple’s going to talk a lot about gadgets. But it’s also Apple’s most public, mainstream moment of the year, and a key moment to see how Apple explains itself to the world. Will the company talk about AI and Future Siri? Will it talk about privacy? Show Ted Lasso trailers? Or will it spend the day happily in the details of building beautiful devices? (One guess: probably no recap of last week’s dinner with President Trump.) It’s always interesting to see what kind of company Apple hopes you think it is.

I’m really asking. It looks very much like the whiz-bang-iest device of today’s Apple event — which starts in less than an hour! — will be a new device called either the iPhone 17 Air or just the iPhone Air. Much will be made of its thinness; there might be a manila envelope. Are you psyched to see it? Totally ambivalent? Filled with rage at the whole concept? Our newsroom is all over the place, I want to know what you think.

Small teases are nothing new for Apple invitations, but as 9to5Mac points out, this Awe Dropping event page includes a fully interactive hint that could say something about its iPhone 17 launch plans.

Apple CEO Tim Cook got to appear in a shiny Variety profile about F1 and Apple’s entertainment efforts. Poor Craig.