Apple's Surprise and Shine Event: John Ternus's First Keynote, 9 September

Apple's autumn hardware event, titled Surprise and Shine, is confirmed for Wednesday 9 September 2026 at 10am Pacific time, 6pm in the UK, at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino. It is the first product keynote presented under new Apple chief executive John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook on 1 September 2026.

The leadership change is the confirmed hard fact worth leading with. Cook's departure after more than a decade running Apple, and Ternus stepping up from his role leading hardware engineering, has been widely reported and is not in question. What Ternus actually reveals on stage is, at the time of writing, still rumour and expectation rather than confirmed fact.

Reporting from MacRumors, CNBC and TidBITS points to a new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, alongside Apple's first foldable iPhone, which some reports refer to by the rumoured name iPhone Ultra. None of those names or the foldable device itself have been confirmed by Apple. New Apple Watch models and a release date for iOS 27 are also expected to feature, based on Apple's usual autumn pattern rather than any leak specific to this event.

If the foldable iPhone is real and does appear, it would be Apple's first shipping foldable device after years of patent filings and supply chain rumours pointing in that direction. That would put Apple roughly level with Samsung and other Android manufacturers who have sold foldable phones for several years already, rather than ahead of them. The interesting design question is less about whether Apple can do a fold and more about what compromises it accepts on thickness, crease and price to do it well.

For now, the only things to treat as fact are the date, the venue, and that this is Ternus's first keynote as chief executive. Everything else, including the specific products, names and pricing, is expectation built from supply chain and analyst reporting, and could change or simply not appear when Apple takes the stage this evening, UK time.