Apple Event for September 9th, 2026
63 points by calvin
63 points by calvin
Out with the Tim, in with the John. Who knows if they'll fold?
Stream start on the hour.
Stream begin.
Shot on iPhone. Short film (in HDR) with things being set on fire. A child with telekinesis. A woman in the bathroom peeling her face. A man taped shut on the ground. Horse armies in the forest. A woman driving away from the cops. Tim Cook talking about Apple Park.
John Ternus debut. Make good products. Moral continuity. Yeah, AI. "Intelligent personal hub." You'd want it with you, and run AI models locally, with pervasive networking, good battery, easy to use, etc. Guess what that is? An iPhone. Apple reiterating that AI should be on-device and protected from third-parties when possible and PCC to avoid storing data when needing cloud compute. Reiterating the products Apple uses AI/ML in.
iPhone. New CPU and GPU core. Extra ANE. A20 Pro. Longer battery life. New cameras. iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. Colour matched Al and glass. Deep black option, silver, light blue (glacier), and burgundy.
Lilian on the new pro iPhones. Recap on Ai features mentioned earlier at WWDC, i.e. larger Foundation models, context awareness, visual search, third-party app support, massively improved Siri, etc. 2.5B Siri requests every day. It's actually shipping.
Sri, not on Siri, but silicon. 2nm. 2 super, 4 efficiency, with neural accelerators. Fastest CPU in smartphone. New GPU architecture, 7-core, 40% perf improvement over A19 Pro. More bandwidth, µarch improvements, 2x FP8 math faster. Second ANE for 32 cores. 50% more memory bandwidth. Physical packaging change, more like the larger M series. Memory side by side with memory instead, so that it can be connected to the the vapour chamber.
Rich on thermals. New vapour chamber design. 3x surface area over last gen. 80% recycled stainless steel, paired with graphite and copper cooling for the display. 40% sustained perf improvement over last gen iPhone Pro. Battery life improvements. eSIM models have 36 hours on video playback, 45 on Pro Max. Wired charging improvements. 50% charged in 15 minutes. 5 minutes of charging for 6 hours of video.
Kaiann. Showing games on iPhone. Camera improvements. Aperture (as in light entering). Aperture adjustment. 48MP main camera with variable aperture. Six blades made out of a special composite. Rotor mechanism and custom lens for controlling it. Automatic aperture control by default, with custom control.
Maryam on camera software. Get effects after you capture. Time lapse in 4K HDR. Better audio mixing with music support. Pro controls. Controls in reach, now more manual controls too. Light controls, histograms, manual aperture, shutter speed, etc. Pro controls work for video too. Easier to focus on moving subjects, lock on with an AI model, with handling for entering and exiting the frame. Photographic styles, more of them, with texture and grain control. Adjustable ex post facto. Image authenticity. SynthID support for generated images. Apple Reference Image. Cryptographically verified image. The image sensor signs it at time of capture? Reference photo lives with the editable photo.
Back to Kaiann. More activities in the dynamic island. iOS 27 is better, as discussed in WWDC. More parental control options. Customizable less bad Liquid Glass. 80% faster AirDrop. iPhone Handoff for single phone number between two iPhones. Requires carrier support. Updated accessories, new colours for them. 1199$, now a 2TB option. Pro Max at 1299$. Apple Upgrade program for leasing. Trade-in offers. Apple Car One for warranty family plan. September 18th.
Back to John. AirPods? New AirPods 5. Dave on those. Still open-ear model. Better acoustics and new EQ engine. Improved ANC, 50% better than 4. Transparency mode is better. Adaptive mode. Apple Intelligence, yes. Live Translation supported. More durable. 4 hours with ANC, 20 hours in the case. 129$. Enhanced model with stem control like the Pro available, with 5 hours ANC and wireless case charging - that one costs 149$.
Back to John. Watch. Health tracking is important. Series 12 and Ultra 4. Deidre on Watch. Improved health sensing. Electrode surface area contact area improved. More efficient LED arrangement. Heart rate every 5 seconds, 60x more frequent. HRV as often as 5 minutes, 24x more often. Comparing other wearables with ECG sensors. Most accurate heart rate sensing in wearables.
Sumbul on heart rate. High frequency heart rate captures, HRV in health app and shows up in the dashboards. Readiness measurements for knowing when to push or not. That score updates, can be viewed in the health app on watch or phone. Health app redesign, with insights based on data by Apple Intelligence. Look at specific metrics, get specific recommendations. See how healthy you are for your age. Longevity tab for Bryan Johnson. Tips based on lab results and clinical guidelines. Order a panel from Quest Diagnostics in US. Do health tracking on your movement with phone camera, tracking i.e. VO2.
Ron on watch AI features. Audio intelligence. Important for the deaf. Sound recognition for i.e. sirens, alarms, babies, doorbells. Live conversation transcription rewind with a 15 second buffer. Ask Siri about it or save it for later. Siri Recap to take notes from conversations, and summarizes them. You control if, when, and where, and manually enable or disable it. Audio is not saved, speakers are not attributed, E2EE encryption. Siri widget for easy control of these featurs. Siri AI required for these, English first, more languages to follow.
Deidre. S11 SoC. New always on processor with secure exclave. Secure audio buffer there. New CPU/GPU/ANE architecture from A19 Pro. Space Grey, Black, Light Gold, Dark Bronze in Al, stronger glass. Polished natural gold and Al. Ceramic is back, pearl white and night blue. Hermes option. 24 hours of battery. Ultra 4 has S11 and health sensor improvements, 2 days battery, 18 hours with maximum sensor and GPS, or 45 hours with the extended battery mode. New bands and colours for Ultra, including a Hermes option. 399$ for base. 799$ for Ultra. Preorder today, Septermber 18th. Promo video before we go back to John.
John. One more thing... iPhone with a bigger display? Foldable. Other companies have poor aspect ratios for their foldables. Make an iPhone foldable that feels better designed than those. iPhone Duo.
Molly and Steve. Similar size to a passport. One handed use attept. Assymetric design when folded. It's like an iPad when unfolded. Works well for portrait and landscape unfolded. Fluid closing/opening animation that's continuous. FaceTime camera behind the display. Hinge with variable torque to feel smooth, magnets to feel satisifying and lock it in place. SoC in camera plateau, battery in rest of body. Liquid Glass to adapt to this new aspect wider aspect ratio, both folded and unfolded. Vertical toolbars in corner, vertical dock, status bar is more compact in corner. Two home screen pages. Sidebars in many apps. Side by side multitasking? Tent mode when partially unfolded.
Joz on Duo. 7.6" unfolded XDR. 50% more than Pro Max, 80% larger than Pro. 5.6" folded. 90% of Pro. Pencil support on folded and unfolded. Touch ID on side button for folded and unfolded. Multiple fingers supported. Unlock with Apple Wach. Speaker top and bottom for both aspect ratio. White and black colours. Titanium. Lots of support on the frame and hinge. Ceramics stronger than titanium. IP68?
Craig on iOS 27. Better lock screen, more efficient use of space. Multiple windows of same app, like on iPad. Tap the divider to group a set of apps. Pin PIP videos up top when folded. Yes, use any orientation. Partial folding for easy controls when watching something. Use it when partially folded when in your hand too. Standby even when not charging in tent mode. Customizable faces in standby, with notifications and bedside clock mode. New APIs for this, third party apps like i.e. Zoom and Slack adapting for multiscreen.
Johny on hardware. They hate the plastic feel, scratches, and creases too. Nanotexture finish. Flat and matte. Maskless laster lithography. Multilayer lamination to keep it flat. Customer polymer that's 40% more stiff than other materials, custom coating for scratches, glass layer for durability. Longetivity to avoid distortion over time. Precision components in hinges, carbon fibre plates for support. Perfect alignment. A20 Pro. New display engine drives multiple panels and blends under pixel cameras. Better sustained performance. C2 modem. Better reception in low coverage areas, 50% faster uploads, 5G mmWave, 15% less energy. eSIM only worldwide. Large battery on each side with balancing to act as one. All-day battery, 31 hours folded, 44 unfolded in video playback. 24 hours of use per charge. 50% in 20 minutes. 5 hours unfolded in 5 minutes charging.
Joz on more of it. Cameras. 48MP Fusion main camera. Zero shutter lag. 2x 12MP telephoto. Main camera does 4K120 for slomo. 4K DV HDR. Main camera also does ultrawide too. Centre stage front camera folded. Dual camera feeds at the same time in calls. FaceTime on both sides' displays so multiple people can join in IRL on a call. Camera with display on front so the person you're taking a picture of can see the frame. Timer mode that keeps people in frame and automatically presses the shutter. Folio case with a kickstand. Basic case that covers both sides. 1999$ 256GB, 2TB option. Trade ins available. Preorders Oct 6th, available 23rd.
Back to John. Promo video. Thanks Apple employees. Have fun.
No mention about iPhone Air, haha. It must have been selling really terribly. Still no new Apple TV, no mention of HomeHub either.
There's no base model iPhone or MacBook announcements either. Based on putting the desktop Mac announcements out later, I'd expect MacBooks would come later in the year. But no base iPhone announcement is curious considering those are a huge volume seller.
It's been long rumoured that basic iPhones are pushed to Spring release, together with SE-series phones and watches. So I'm totally not surprised by that. And I guess Macs haven't been shown together with flagships iPhones for quite a while, especially given that nowadays it's just SoC bumps.
The iPhone Air is weird enough that I always assumed it was a step toward / test run for the foldable. Practice getting something super skinny out. The unfolded Duo is about the same thickness as the Air.
Whoa, variable aperture on the camera! That's neat. Signed images is interesting... but couldn't you take the key off the phone and sign any image you wanted?
I don't think you could take the key off the phone. It's surely going to be stored in the secure enclave, which has seemed an effective way of protecting secrets.
If you wanted to fake an image, I think it would be easier to print out the image and re-photograph it. (I don't know if the file also includes depth information, though, which would thwart that.)
C2PA is trying to solve similar problems, and rooted Android devices can produce signed inauthentic images/videos. So "just" finding an iOS root exploit might allow similar fakery.
That's neat.
Samsung had those in Galaxy S9 almost eight years ago!
Apple's stopped doing any hardware feature innovation, just picking up what's become standard in phones designed in east asia. Variable aperture cameras, folding phones, etc.
They never have produced their own hardware, so they always have been dependent on what is on the market. Also keep in mind that Apple is producing a much larger volume of a product than their competition. Therefore they need to wait for this capacity to exist, which makes it impossible to be a first mover.
Not produced, but designed. I think the "taptic engine" (basically a speaker where the membrane is a heavy piece of metal, as far as I remember) was an innovation they created in-house. There are probably better examples, it was just the first thing that came to mind.
Interesting, it looks like that one had just two aperture settings. I'm surprised that they went to the effort of including the mechanism, and then didn't provide continuously variable control of it.
Regular camera lenses don't really give you continuously variable fstops either (but you get a lot more than two options). I wonder why that is? Reproducability?
It really depends on the vintage of the lenses. My Nikkors with aperture rings allows me to set the aperture continuously between the stop detents. I'm reasonably sure that at least with AI-s lenses (which introduced a linear response to the aperture activation lever in the camera) you could set the aperture in stepless increments between the detents, and the camera would expose correctly in aperture priority.
Certainly with a mirrorless Nikon, the aperture ring can be set continously and the exposure reacts in real time. You won't get any feedback on the set aperture though.
Anyone with Canon EF/RF lenses (which have electronically controlled apertures) care to report if the aperture value is continuous in shutter priority, or if the camera defaults to setting the aperture in 1/3 stop increments?
iiuc it's mostly so you can set a particular setting without looking at the dial, just by counting the number of clicks. Some manual lenses don't have the "clicks" though, and for those that do "declicking" is a mod people do sometimes.
maybe they weren't able to have as precise digital to analogue control system? ie making it two-states was probably much easier than carefully having it a continuous spectrum?
Holy **** that's expensive, the Duo starts at $2800 where I live. That's really high end laptop territory.
For the majority of its target audience it is a status symbol, so it should be expensive. Almost no one will use that hardware potential anyway.
Wow, burgundy. The only things remotely interesting are the camera aperture and the fold but not for $2000…