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Apple’s September event, where the tech giant unveils its new smartphones, is arguably the company’s most popular event – not to mention one of the biggest events in the tech world as a whole. So, what did Apple surprise us with this time?
Well, the annual spectacle is here again. September is that magical time of year when the leaves turn yellow, children head back to school, and millions of people around the world collectively hold their breath in front of their screens to find out exactly how much Apple has “changed the game” this time around. Spoiler: not much. But Cupertino’s marketing department certainly earned its paycheck – and, to be fair, you have to give them credit for that.
The event was called “Surprise and Shine” – and, as you might have guessed, there was very little surprise involved. As usual, leaks had already revealed virtually everything two weeks before the presentation. What’s more, even the final name of the foldable phone (“iPhone Duo”) was reportedly revealed by insiders literally a day before the event. Apple seems so determined to retain control of the narrative that it effectively staged a movie premiere after the trailer had already been leaked online – complete with subtitles and an alternate ending.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max: A Revolution in the Form of “A Slightly Smaller Cutout”
This year’s “big innovation” is that Dynamic Island has become smaller and can now display as many as three notifications instead of two. Hold on to your chairs, ladies and gentlemen – this is apparently the level of technological progress we’re willing to pay $1,200 for. Previously, you got two circles with icons. Now you get three. Next year, I suspect, there will be four, and in five years, Dynamic Island will evolve into a full-fledged display – at which point someone in Cupertino might finally realize that it’s simply… a screen.
Apple’s new Bionic A20 Pro chip, manufactured using a 2-nanometer process, is certainly impressive from an engineering standpoint – and probably of little practical interest to users who could barely make use of the previous chip’s full potential while scrolling through TikTok. Still, the marketing slide featuring a comparative performance chart is bound to make an appearance. And, as always, the graph will be “slightly curved” in just the right way to make Apple’s bar look disproportionately taller than that of last year’s model.
The camera now features a variable aperture – a feature that other smartphone manufacturers have been introducing for years, but which now officially exists because it was mentioned on stage by someone wearing a soft-knit sweater. From a hardware perspective, the technology is genuinely interesting, so we’ll hold back on the sarcasm here. This is one of the few areas where the progress is real rather than merely cosmetic.
Colors: black, silver, glacier – essentially just another shade of gray with a more appealing name – and burgundy, dubbed “Dark Cherry.” Judging by the design trends of recent years, the latter will probably see its matte finish start peeling off within six months, exposing the bare aluminum around the edges of the chassis. At that point, owners will collectively head out to buy the case they should have bought on launch day.
As for pricing, the figures are quite real and officially confirmed: the iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199, while the Pro Max starts at $1,299. In other words, they’re more expensive than last year’s lineup. And this is the point when fans traditionally take to the comments to write, “Finally, some real innovation,” while their bank accounts traditionally have something very different to say.
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iPhone Duo: The Phone That Bends Without Breaking the Habit of Buying a New One Every Year
And here’s the star of the show – Apple’s first-ever foldable smartphone, now officially called the iPhone Duo. Not the iPhone Ultra, as virtually every leak claimed as recently as yesterday. The consistency of predictions in this industry is impressive – roughly on par with a one-month weather forecast.
The “book-style” form factor, with an outer OLED display of roughly 5.5 inches and an inner display of up to 7.8 inches, is undeniably an impressive feat of engineering. It’s just a shame that Samsung and Google have been demonstrating essentially the same feat of engineering for nearly a decade. Samsung is already on the eighth generation of its foldable phones, while Google has just unveiled the fourth generation of the Pixel Fold. Apple, meanwhile, decided to join the party after most of the guests had already gone home – but with the proud expression of someone who has just discovered fire.
The price of admission? $1,999. For that money, you get a foldable display that, by definition, has a physical crease running through it – right in the middle of the frame, where it can’t help but interfere with the viewing experience; a fingerprint scanner built into the side button because, apparently, putting Face ID under a foldable display is still a challenge even for the richest company on the planet; and a front-facing camera hidden under the display when the phone is unfolded – a technology that exists, but typically delivers photo quality somewhere around “trying to make a video call through frosted glass.” You also get Apple Pencil support with USB-C charging – meaning yet another accessory you have to buy separately, because of course it doesn’t come included in the box.
It comes in two colors: “Starlight White” and “Night Sky.” These names sound as though they were written not by an engineer, but by a poet who was paid by the line for every poetic phrase. Incidentally, Apple didn’t come up with the name “Duo” from scratch either. Microsoft released the foldable Surface Duo back in 2020, so apparently the Cupertino company has run out of ideas not only for the screen design, but for naming it as well.
Pre-orders begin in October, with deliveries starting on October 23. That means almost two more months of waiting for those already willing to pay roughly $2000 for a phone that folds in half like a school planner.
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Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4: Another Year of “Almost No Changes,” but With a New Chip
The watches get a new S11 chip, along with several new features related to audio analysis. Apparently, AI can now listen to the way you breathe and draw conclusions about your health from it – undoubtedly useful progress, but also slightly unsettling when you consider just how much data about your body is now being stored on servers in California. A ceramic case, satellite features for the Ultra 4, new watch faces, new bands – all the usual additions that help fill out a presentation slide, but are unlikely to send Series 11 or Ultra 3 owners rushing to the nearest store.
This is the kind of product Apple releases every year precisely because putting the upgrade cycle on hold would mean admitting that the watch is, for all intents and purposes, already finished, with very little left to improve. But capitalism doesn’t allow you to say things like that out loud.
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AirPods 5: Earbuds With Better Noise Isolation That Cost the Same – Until They Cost More
The new generation of AirPods promises improved noise cancellation, better resistance to dust and sweat, and a version with controls built into the stem.
According to Apple, they come “at the same price,” which almost always means “at the same price – for now.” The company’s pricing history is essentially a story of a slow but relentless upward climb, like a tide quietly creeping toward the shoes you left on the beach.
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The Bottom Line
Strip away the marketing layer, and September 2026 gave us: a phone that’s slightly faster than last year’s model; a phone that folds, just as its competitors have been doing for years; a watch that’s now slightly better at listening to your heartbeat; and earbuds that are slightly better at blocking out the noise of the person sitting next to you on a plane. None of these upgrades can really be called revolutionary. At this point, they’re not revolutions – they’re simply an annual subscription fee for the privilege of feeling “up to date.”
And the best part of this whole story is that exactly one year from now, we’ll be back here again, reading an article with roughly the same title about the iPhone 19 Pro, an even smaller display cutout, and yet another variable aperture that will finally “change everything.” See you then. Until next time.
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