Live Updates From Apple’s ‘Surprise and Shine’ iPhone Event 🔴

Apple’s updated AI will now synthesize all your health information, like sleep data, exercise, and heart rate, and give you a “Health Age” score. What if I don’t actually want to know that much about myself? —Matt Wille

The new Apple Watch will take your heart rate up to 24x more than its predecessor. Apple says it’s now the “most accurate heart rate sensing” available in a wearable. —Matt Wille

The AirPods 5 now feature ANC, which promises around five hours of battery life thanks to a reengineered power cell. And despite the fact that they have this feature AirPods 4 didn’t, they still cost the same $129. The AirPods 5 with a wireless charging case will now cost $149. —Kyle Barr

That’s right, RAMageddon has come for the iPhone. The new iPhone 18 Pro will start at $1,200, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max will ask for $1,300. That’s both $100 more than the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, respectively. Let’s just admit that—considering today’s memory prices—it could have been way worse. —Kyle Barr

Apple’s planning to support Google’s SynthID watermarks for AI-generated images, but it’s now also trying to beat deepfakes with a reference photo future. Essentially, Apple will host an original image in its Private Cloud Compute servers that doesn’t have any modifications. —Kyle Barr

The iPhone Pro’s camera is getting more professional with additional controls. Now, with Pro Camera controls, you can adjust things like aperture, white balance, shutter speed, and more. The Pro controls also work with video, allowing you to adjust shutter speed for more motion blur. You can also maintain focus on moving subjects with AI. For anyone who takes iPhone photography seriously, I assume these will be pretty rad. —James Pero

But it’s still pretty damn cool. Apple has added a mechanical aperture to its 48-megapixel main “fusion” camera lens, which means that you’ll have much more control over depth of field for your shots. It’s going to be a very pro-centric feature, but at least it’s one of those features that will potentially make amateur photogs more willing to reach for their phone instead of their camera in a pinch. —Kyle Barr

The iPhone 18 Pro is supposed to offer much better performance, and a big reason for that is because the iPhone should be much better at keeping cool. Apple said the phone now has a 3X larger vapor chamber, which is important because the redesigned A20 chip now has its silicon die placed next to its memory, which means the 2nm chip can seat closer to the thermal system. All this means that, maybe—finally—the iPhone 18 won’t be as toasty as usual. —Kyle Barr

The A20 Pro is Apple’s newest high-end iPhone chip and comes with two “neural engines.” That equates to quite a few improvements, according to Apple, including “2x more compute.” There’s also a 50% increase in memory bandwidth. Whether you really feel the results will depend on what you’re doing, of course, but it looks impressive on paper. —James Pero

Apple mentioned that some of Siri’s capabilities may be rate limited but didn’t offer more details during its event. We’ll just have to find out for ourselves if Apple wants us to buy into an iCloud subscription to get the most use out of AI. —Kyle Barr

Siri’s AI enhancements are finally here. They were in the latest betas, but if you’ve been waiting for the full release, know that Siri has more “personal context” that allows it to understand what you’ve been posting in your emails or messages, and it can take some actions on your behalf. Siri also has several “expressive” options for voice, but only on the more recent iPhone models. This has all been well-established since WWDC, but we’ll see how well it performs on the millions of iPhones that can use it. —Kyle Barr

There it is: Burgundy is the new color for the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max. Other colors for the iPhone 18 Pro: Deep Black, Glacier (light blue), and a new silver.

The glass panel on the backside is also color-matched to the aluminum frame. —Raymond Wong

iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max

Check out the new color with color matched back.

Burgundy is the new color#appleevent pic.twitter.com/1maaD28lsw

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2026

John Ternus really had us going there for a second. “Intelligent Personal Hub?” I mean, come on, we were all thinking smart home hub, right? —James Pero

While the folks in Cupertino, California are greeting John Ternus, the rest of us plebs watching the livestream are greeted with a very Apple-ish opening trailer, or perhaps multiple trailers. And suddenly, Tim Cook’s voice, then Tim Cook, who reveals he’s no longer the head honcho. It’s John Ternus, y’all. They’re really making a big deal out of this. —Kyle Barr

Ternus didn’t say the signature “Good Morning,” like Tim Cook always did. Guess he’s doing things his own way. He said Apple has been doing a lot of imagining and we’ll see some of those things today. —Raymond Wong

John Ternus is out on stage and attendees gave him a loud ovation. So much love for the new guy. —Raymond Wong

Standing ovation for John Ternus! #appleevent pic.twitter.com/kXPDk3NLNt

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2026

New Executive Chairman Tim Cook sighted! Where is John Ternus? Probably behind the stage getting ready to hop on and “Good Morning” us all. —Raymond Wong

New Apple Executive Chairman Tim Cook sighted! #appleevent pic.twitter.com/KMQXtQWqMs

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2026

Thanks to the iPhone 17 Pro’s 8x zoom, I was able to scope on Apple’s head of marketing Greg Joswiak and chief of software engineering, Craig Federighi. Dude’s hair still still looks incredible. Gotta find out what conditioner he uses to get that kinda volume. —Raymond Wong

I spy Craig Federighi and Greg Jozwiak at the #appleevent pic.twitter.com/QAW9wUSz64

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2026

I’m seated inside of the Steve Jobs Theater. If you’ve never been here, know this: the theater has plush leather (?!) seats, outlets for each one, and the speaker system is one of the very best I’ve ever experienced. —Raymond Wong

15 minutes until the #appleevent keynote! pic.twitter.com/Cpjopg4iIT

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2026

Apple’s new leader woke up super early and shared this teaser to his X account. But what is it? The variable aperture for the iPhone 18 Pro Max? Some glimpse of a close-up of the foldable iPhone? Make your guesses in the comments. —Raymond Wong

pic.twitter.com/CLu9eRDP5b

— John Ternus (@johnternus) September 9, 2026

Here’s my food review of the breakfast for invited media: B. I’m wolfing down this mini chocolate croissant and an apple tart. I’m going to need the sugar to power me through the long day. The coffee is mid, too. Edible, but nothing special. I’m old enough to remember when the food and drinks situation was amazing. Of course, this was in the early days when the Steve Jobs Theater had just opened. —Raymond Wong

We just picked up our badges and have arrived at the Steve Jobs Theater. The current temperature is 72 degrees Fahrenheit in Cupertino, and it’s supposed to reach a high of 96 degrees by the late afternoon. I’m definitely feeling a bit antsy, but I can’t wait to see the so-called iPhone Duo. Is this the foldable that will make foldable phones mainstream? We shall see. —Raymond Wong

Got my #AppleEvent badge! Ready to see the foldable iPhone pic.twitter.com/vhcDNwJoVH

— Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2026

Maybe I should have stuck to my prediction that Apple will call the foldable iPhone the “iPhone Duo.” Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said on X last night that he believes Apple has decided to call it the iPhone Duo, with the device starting at $2,000 and shipping in September. A storage option with 2TB could cost around $3,000 he said. The Apple sleuth also said that the iPhone Duo will support Apple Pencil and launch in dark blue and white colorways.

John Ternus could do the funniest thing ever and not call it the iPhone Duo just to screw with Gurman, though. That would be pretty funny. —Raymond Wong

Well, no regular iPhones, that is. Rumor has it Apple will only be announcing the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone 18 Pro Max today, with no iPhone 18 in the mix. It’s an interesting choice from Apple, a company that usually hopes to offer something lower-end for users who aren’t ready to shell out $1,000+ on a new phone.

But hey, we are expecting to see the foldable iPhone today. That’s basically two phones in one, right? —Matt Wille

Apple has just released a firmware update for a product that does not exist yet

Beats 360 Firmware 4A203 is out.

It confirms the Beats 360 name and the 4 colors: Black, Pink, White, Cloud

It also includes HD images of the upcoming products pic.twitter.com/a24FDZcu1m

— Aaron (@aaronp613) September 8, 2026

AirPods aren’t the only audio product that should be on your Apple radar right now. According to leaks, Beats has a new pair of wireless headphones in the works called the Beats 360. There are even some HD images leaked along with them, and they look… very Beats-y.

Whether these are announced at today’s event is another story, but the timing of the leak is certainly interesting. —James Pero 

Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are likely going to cost at least $100 more, according to Bloomberg’s ever-consistent Apple leaker Mark Gurman. So what kinds of hardware upgrades will Apple try to suggest are worth the ballooning cost of memory? Gurman says there should be some big camera upgrades this year that will include a mechanical aperture on at least one of the new lenses. This grants more fine-tuned control over your photos, and it may be my main reason for personally opting for the bar-style phone instead of the upcoming foldable.

The other big upgrade may be Apple’s downsizing of the Dynamic Island. It could appear smaller on your phone without any content on it, but Gurman suggested users will be able to toggle between up to three live activities at one time. Compared to something like the relatively pointless Camera Control switch, the Dynamic Island has proved itself a worthwhile feature over time, and it’s nice to see it with more usability. —Kyle Barr

It’s looking like AirPods with cameras in them are a long shot on today’s laundry list of releases, but AirPods 5 might make an appearance. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, AirPods 5 will bring a few perks over the last generation, including better active noise cancellation (ANC).

There will be two models, according to Gurman, and one of them will have wireless charging in the case while the other won’t. Sure, it’s not as mind-blowing as wireless earbuds that can remember where you left your keys, but it’s something. —James Pero

You shouldn’t expect any massive hardware update from Apple’s wearables this year. Instead, the main reason Apple wants you to be excited may be for new software updates—and of course that means AI. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested The Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 will have a feature that summarizes your day, and that may include conversations.

This AI Siri-enabled feature may be called “Recaps,” according to Gurman. The big question is whether Apple will have it run all the live-long day or if you can set it to only start recording at certain times or in certain locations. Apple will, of course, try to emphasize how it will keep your data secure, but I don’t imagine many users are still that enticed by more self-surveillance features. Also, don’t expect this feature to come to any past Apple Watches, which is especially annoying considering how many recent Apple Watch models can’t even get watchOS 27. —Kyle Barr

One of the less-anticipated product reveals for the “Surprise and Shine” event on Wednesday may be a new version of the Apple TV 4K set-top box. It’s a good thing too, since the old one was looking a little long in the tooth. A new box necessitates a new processor upgrade, and MacRumors claims—based on some pre-release code—that we may see an A19 or A19 Pro chip. This six-core SoC was first built for the iPhone 17 generation, but that means Apple may also be upgrading the RAM spec from 4GB to 8GB or more. We’d hate to see what that does to the price. A current-gen Apple TV 4K went from $130 to $200 in Apple’s big across-the-board price hike back in June. —Kyle Barr

We’ve been reading purported details about the foldable iPhone, iPhone 18 Pros, Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, and AirPods 5 for months now. Here are all the major rumors on what to expect from John Ternus and company tomorrow. Spoiler alert: it’s full of spoilers! —Raymond Wong

Guys, I’ve been in Cupertino for 24 hours, and let me tell you, it’s dry out here. I’m very excited to see Apple’s first foldable iPhone. Can’t say the same about my skin drying up. Today is a planning day with the Consumer Tech Team. We’re gonna be working like maniacs to bring you all fast and accurate coverage of everything that Apple announces tomorrow. —Raymond Wong