A foldable iPhone is tipped for Apple’s September 9 event (which will be streamed at 5am on September 10, NZT).
Images of a leaked “dummy” indicate that, if the long-anticipated foldable arrives this year, it will have the wide “passport” format – the same as Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, released in July.
Apple is also expected to unveil upgrades to its Pro and Pro Max, which, if it follows its usual convention, will be called the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
As ever, the tech giant gave away no details on its invitation, which simply said “Surprise and shine”.
But Apple’s September event has always included new handsets.
An Apple Watch refresh is also expected.
The September 9 event will be its first under new chief executive John Ternus, formerly the tech giant’s head of hardware engineering.
Ternus, 51, is set to take over from the long-serving Tim Cook, 65, on September 1.
Apple surprised earlier this week by announcing new Mac Studio and Mac Mini models that can be pre-ordered now for shipping on September 22.
The new Mini starts at $1799 with the all-new M6 chip or from $3400 with the M5 Pro, while the larger, higher-specced Mac Studio is priced from $4999.
Big performance boosts are promised for the age of AI. Apple says the M5 Pro-powered Mini will deliver up to 8.5 times faster LLM (large language model) in LM Studio compared to a Mini with the M2 Pro, and up to 4.5 times gains in rendering complex graphics.
But as outgoing CEO Cook warned earlier this year, the data centre-boom-driven “Ramageddon” is being felt by Apple, as it is across the industry.
Boosting the Mini’s included 16GB of memory to 24GB costs $400, a bump to 32GB $800.
Upgrading from the standard 256GB of storage to 1TB (1000GB) will cost $1000, while a boost to 2TB will cost $2000.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.