Apple's Big September Event: What to Know About the New iPhones and the Foldable Rumor

Apple will hold its next major product launch on September 9, 2026, at 1PM ET inside the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park. Invites went out to press on Wednesday The Verge. The event carries the tagline "Surprise and shine" and will be livestreamed on Apple's website.

This will be the first Apple launch led by John Ternus as CEO. Ternus takes over from Tim Cook on September 1, so he will have been in the top job for just over a week when he takes the stage.

Apple is expected to update its higher-end iPhone models, called the Pro and Pro Max, under the names iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max The Verge. These are described as modest upgrades rather than major changes. The bigger rumor is that Apple may finally announce a foldable iPhone at this event. If true, it would be Apple's first phone with a screen that bends or folds, something Samsung, Google, and several Chinese phone makers have been selling for years. It would also be the biggest change to the iPhone's physical shape since the original model set the standard flat-rectangle design back in 2007.

Apple reportedly will not announce the standard, lower-priced iPhone 18 at the September event. Instead, it would come later, possibly next year. An iPhone 18e and a second version of the iPhone Air are rumored for 2027. This is a break from Apple's usual approach, which has been to show off its full new iPhone lineup at one fall event each year.

That pattern was on display recently. Apple's September 2024 event introduced the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 with Apple Intelligence, the Apple Watch Series 10, and AirPods 4 Apple. A year earlier, the September 2023 event debuted the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, which brought USB-C charging, the Dynamic Island to the base lineup, a 48MP main camera, and Roadside Assistance via satellite Apple. Each of those events followed the conventional full-lineup reveal pattern.

Apple's September 2025 event was also scheduled for September 9, per a Reuters report citing the company's invite Reuters. That makes September 9 a recurring date across three straight years of fall launches.

Apple has also made other recent moves that help frame the September event. The company introduced a new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips, and a more powerful Mac Mini featuring M6 and M5 Pro chips Apple. The M6 and M5 Ultra were positioned as delivering a significant leap in performance and AI compute capability. On the services side, Apple announced changes for apps in the European Union on August 18, 2026, opened an Advanced Manufacturing Center in Houston on August 13, and added Block Blast!+ and Art of Fauna: Cozy Puzzles+ to Apple Arcade on August 11 Apple.

The broader context here is one of leadership change intersecting with a shift in product strategy. Ternus comes from a hardware engineering background, and his first time on stage as CEO may coincide with Apple's first foldable device. Apple's events team has a history of pairing new leadership with big product moments. Tim Cook's first product launch as CEO in October 2011 introduced the iPhone 4S and came the day before Steve Jobs's death, but that timing was a matter of circumstance, not planning. Ternus's debut is different: the leadership transition was announced and scheduled, giving Apple months to design the event around the moment.

The decision to hold back the standard iPhone 18 from this event is worth flagging. Apple has sometimes split announcements across more than one event in a season, but delaying a base model for roughly a full year is unusual. It could point to supply chain constraints if the foldable phone is tying up manufacturing resources. It could also be a deliberate strategy to steer budget-conscious buyers toward older models still on the shelves while saving the fall spotlight for premium and new hardware. Either reading is speculative at this point; what is known is that the base iPhone 18 is not expected in September.

As for the foldable iPhone, the "Surprise and shine" tagline invites interpretation without confirming anything. Apple's event taglines have ranged from the suggestive ("Glowtime," "Wonderlust") to the deliberately vague. The company has a track record of hinting at major design changes in its invite language only in retrospect.

What is verifiable is the date, the venue, the leadership change, and the product expectations as currently reported. September 9 at the Steve Jobs Theater, streamed live, with a new CEO and the possibility of the most physically different iPhone since the product line began. If the foldable ships, it ends the longest-running "when, not if" question in consumer hardware. If it does not, the modest Pro refresh and Ternus's debut remain the story, and foldable speculation resets for another cycle.