Update: Bloomberg's Mark Gurman who has a strong track record in letting us know what Apple is likely to do before they tell us expects Tuesday's event not to be about the iPhone at all, but rather will be focused on the Apple Watch (as well as the iPad). That certainly fits in with the "Time Flies" hint in Apple's invitation to media, which differed from the event announcement posted on the company's website. Gurman expects the new iPhone 12s to show up in October. Does that mean Tim Cook won't even mention iPhone 12s next Tuesday and will reserve that comment until a separate launch announcement at least a few weeks? Once more, Apple will keep us guessing.
Original post: The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t stopping Apple from holding its customary September iPhone product launch, but it will prevent the company from hosting the media in person. On Tuesday, Apple announced that its digital-only event will take place one week from today on Sept 15 at 10 a.m. PDT, streamed from its Apple Park headquarters.
The invitation did not make any mention of iPhones, though press speculation is already rampant that Tim Cook’s crew is cooking up four new models. The Verge, for example, expects Apple to announce a pair of iPhone 12s with 5.4-inch and 6.1-inch display sizes, plus two pricier iPhone 12 Pro Max handsets, with 6.1 and 6.7-inch displays, respectively. All four phones will almost certainly provide some sort of compatibility with next generation 5G networks. They may also have OLED displays and robust 120Hz refresh rates.
What we know for sure is that the latest iPhones will run iOS 14, the mobile operating system that is currently available to the public as a beta.
It’s also a good bet Apple will showcase other freshly minted versions of existing products next week, including the Apple Watch, iPads, and very possibly a new Mac with Apple’s own silicon at its core. And we might see the rumored bundling of the company’s various services into different subscription-based combinations of Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV +, Apple News+ and iCloud, which Bloomberg wrote about as long ago as last November.
It's the biggest understatement to say the world has changed since then. And as Apple put on the email invitation I received, "Time Flies."
Stay tuned.