Apple has a keynote on Wednesday, and for once the rumour mill isn’t arguing about the camera bumps. It’s arguing about whether the iPhone is about to fold in half.
The event is called “Surprise and Shine”, it runs on 9 September at Apple Park, and it is shaping up to be the most consequential 90 minutes Apple has had in nearly a decade – partly because of what’s being launched, and partly because of who’s launching it.
Here’s everything worth knowing before you clear your evening:
When Is The Apple Surprise And Shine Event?
Wednesday 9 September 2026, at 10:00am Pacific – which is 6:00pm BST for those of us watching from a sofa in London. It’s being held at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park in Cupertino, and streamed live on Apple’s events page, YouTube and the Apple TV app.
The invite itself is doing a lot of work: a bright blue sky, the Apple logo rendered in a smear of colour, lens flare, and a soft circular sweep that reads as a nod to the ring-shaped campus. “Surprise and Shine” is, as taglines go, unusually pleased with itself. Apple does not normally promise surprises unless it has one.
There’s A New CEO In The Room
The bit that’s easy to miss in the spec-sheet noise: this is John Ternus’s first keynote as chief executive. Tim Cook stepped down on 1 September 2026 after 15 years, handing over to Ternus, previously Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.
That’s eight days between taking the job and walking onto the biggest stage in consumer technology. Ternus is a hardware person by training and by temperament, which makes it fitting – if slightly on the nose – that his debut is expected to centre on the most ambitious piece of hardware Apple has attempted in years.
The Foldable iPhone Is The Whole Story
Everything points to Apple finally showing a folding iPhone, widely tipped to be called the iPhone Ultra. It would be the company’s first new form factor since the iPhone X in 2017, which is the sort of sentence Apple’s marketing team lives for.
What the leaks suggest, according to MacRumors‘ running roundup:
- A 5.5-inch outer screen and a 7.8-inch inner display with ProMotion, in a 4:3 aspect ratio closer to an iPad than a phone
- Roughly 4.5mm thick when open – which would make it the thinnest thing Apple has ever built – and around 9 to 9.5mm folded
- A liquid metal hinge with a titanium and aluminium frame
- Touch ID in the power button rather than Face ID, because there’s nowhere sensible to put the sensor array
- Two 48-megapixel rear cameras (wide and ultra-wide) and no telephoto – the thinness has a cost
- A dual battery, one cell either side of the fold, in the 5,400-5,800mAh range
The obsessive detail is the crease. Reports suggest Apple has chased a near-invisible fold “regardless of cost”, with leakers putting the crease depth under 0.15mm and the fold angle under 2.5 degrees. If that lands, it’s the one thing that would meaningfully separate an iPhone Ultra from the foldables that have been on the market for years.
How Much Will The iPhone Ultra Cost?
Taiwanese research firm TrendForce published an analysis on 3 September putting the starting price at $2,099 to $2,299 in the US, with the highest storage configurations potentially climbing past $3,000.
That would make it, comfortably, the most expensive iPhone ever made. UK pricing hasn’t been reported, but historically it doesn’t flatter us. TrendForce also lists an A20 Pro chip on TSMC’s 2nm process, 12GB of RAM, storage from 256GB to 2TB, and a 24-megapixel front camera.
Colours are expected to be deliberately restrained – white or silver, plus a dark blue that later leaks describe as almost black. Nothing playful.
Why we care: a $2,000+ phone that opens into a tablet is a genuinely different proposition to a phone. It’s the first time in a long time that upgrading is a decision rather than a habit.
The iPhone 18 Pro And The Colour Everyone Wants
The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are also expected. The standard iPhone 18 isn’t tipped for this event.
The shade doing the rounds is Dark Cherry – reported by Macworld as Pantone 6076, a moody wine-plum somewhere between red and purple, replacing last year’s Cosmic Orange. Leaked dummy units have shown it running slightly pinker than expected. Also rumoured: a light blue, a dark grey and a silver, though a more recent leak suggests black is in and silver is out.
If Dark Cherry’s story is true, it will sell out first. This is not a prediction so much as a law of the obvious as far as we’re concerned.
Apple Watch Series 12, Ultra 4 And The Whoop Problem
New watches are expected too – the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 – though not a redesign. The interesting part is what’s happening inside the software.
It’s been reported that Apple is working on continuous heart-rate collection throughout the day, plus revamped Health and Fitness apps showing more wellness metrics, built “in a similar fashion to increasingly popular app offerings from Whoop and Oura.”
Other recovery-score wearables have competed in a category Apple thought it owned, and this is the response. A ceramic case is also rumoured to return, in white and dark grey, for the first time since 2017.
What Else Might Turn Up
A refreshed HomePod mini, a new Apple TV 4K, possibly a home hub, and new AirPods are all on the maybe list. Expect release dates for iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate.
One iOS 27 feature worth flagging: iPhone Handoff, which would let you run the same phone number across multiple iPhones via eSIM – carrier permitting. Useful if you’re the sort of person who ends up owning both a foldable and a Pro.
When Can You Actually Buy It?
Pre-orders are expected to open at midnight Pacific on Saturday 12 September – a shift from Apple’s usual 5:00am Friday slot, reportedly to avoid the 9/11 anniversary. Some reporting suggests the foldable itself may not ship until October.
All of the above is just rumour and speculation until Ternus says otherwise on Wednesday evening. But the direction of travel is clear: we’ll be watching at 6pm.
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