Apple’s September 2026 hardware event is shaping up to be the company’s most product-dense announcement in years, with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reporting eight new products on the agenda, headlined by the first foldable iPhone Ultra in the company’s history. Wednesday, September 9 is the leading candidate for the event date, with Apple expected to announce it on Wednesday, August 26, exactly two weeks prior.
Writing in his Power On newsletter this weekend, Gurman outlined the full slate and described the foldable iPhone as “the most significant overhaul in the iPhone’s history,” adding that “iPhone 4, iPhone 6 and iPhone X were clearly a big deal, but this is a whole new design.” Apple reportedly asked suppliers to prepare roughly 10 million foldable units this year, up from an earlier forecast of seven to eight million, signalling real confidence in demand at a price point analysts put around $1,999.
The Eight Products Expected in September
- iPhone Ultra: Apple’s first foldable iPhone, book-style design with a 5.3-inch external display that unfolds into a 7.6-inch internal display; 4.5mm thin when open, crease nearly eliminated through advanced display techniques and a highly durable hinge; resembles an iPad mini when unfolded; expected starting price around $1,999
- iPhone 18 Pro: Major camera upgrades, new colors, reduced Dynamic Island; expected starting price around $1,399
- iPhone 18 Pro Max: Same as Pro plus significant battery improvements
- Apple Watch Series 12: Health and fitness tracking improvements, chip upgrade, no major design overhaul
- Apple Watch Ultra 4: Updated internals, similarly evolutionary
- Apple TV: New Apple-designed Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, A17 Pro processor adding support for console-quality games and Apple Intelligence
- HomePod mini: Refreshed model expected to be ready for fall
- Smart Home Hub: September preview is plausible, with full release between October and early next year
The Home Hub Is the Dark Horse
The smart home hub is the least-defined product in the lineup but potentially ones. It carries an all-display, iPad-like 7-inch screen and comes in two configurations: one designed to be wall-mounted and one with an included speaker base that resembles a HomePod mini. Intended use cases span smart home control, music playback, video calls, weather, Siri queries, photos, notes, and calendar, placing it as a stationary AI assistant with a screen in direct competition with Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub.
The timing is tied directly to Siri, the more capable, personalized version of Siri has only just arrived in beta, roughly two years after Apple first previewed it at WWDC 2024, and that delay held back several product categories. The home hub was one of them. Now that the underlying AI is functional enough to ship, Apple has products that can plausibly demonstrate it.
Absent from the September lineup is any base-tier iPhone. Apple is reportedly splitting its launch schedule beginning this cycle, pushing iPhone 18, iPhone 18e, and iPhone Air 2 to spring 2027. The September event will be entirely premium-focused, with the cheapest new iPhone starting at roughly $1,399, which means buyers who usually wait for the standard model have nothing new to consider this holiday quarter.
Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 are evolutionary rather than transformational, with health and fitness upgrades and a long-overdue chip refresh but no visual changes. A separate Gurman report notes Apple is actively reconsidering the Watch lineup and exploring more radical designs, including round screens, though that work is not expected to surface as a shipping product in September 2026.
The refreshed Apple TV is worth watching in its own right: the A17 Pro chip brings Apple Intelligence support and console-quality gaming to the set-top box, a meaningful step up from the current hardware. Combined with the broader shifts in Apple’s supply chain this year, the September event reflects a company moving several product lines forward simultaneously after a period of deliberate delay.
If Apple holds to historical form and announces the event on August 26, the industry gets exactly two weeks to absorb official confirmation of what is already an open secret: the foldable iPhone is real, it costs as much as a MacBook Pro, and Apple is betting it can move ten million of them before the year is out.
