Invites were sent out on Monday this week for the annual Apple event in San Francisco. It’s the time when they usually announce their new flagship devices and we are certainly expecting some new hardware this year. The rumoured iPhone 7, or 6-something to save 7 for next year, is the headliner while an Apple Smartwatch and/or new MacBook Pro. As usual, we won’t actually know until the event itself.
The invite is the usual cryptic missive from Apple. The press are invited to appear at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco at 10am Pacific Time on September 7. That’s 6pm UK on the 7th. As always, it says nothing about the content of the event or what to expect. All part of the fun!
What do we expect at the Apple event?
As mentioned, we are expecting some kind of phone announcement. Whether it will be an iPhone 7 or iPhone 6SE, we don’t yet know. Either is likely, but the temptation to keep the iPhone 7 for the 7th in 2017 might be too much for the Americans.
As to what other hardware might be announced, that is slightly more difficult. All current Apple models are getting a bit old so all could do with a refresh. All have been out over a year, which is an eternity in tech. The usual rumour mill that surrounds Apple release has been unable to make its mind up and the sources we tend to rely on for this kind of thing haven’t been able to help much either.
We might see the Apple Watch 2, a much-needed update to the existing wearable that has done pretty well over the past 18 months. We may even see a new MacBook Pro which is in sore need of an update. An iPad Pro isn’t out of the question either.
We do think we will see an update to MacOS nicknamed Sierra, a new iOS 10 to accompany the new phone and watchOS 3 which may or may not accompany a new Apple Watch. There was also talk about tvOS 10 too but the TV side of things doesn’t follow the same annual schedule as the other devices so we aren’t sure about that.
What we are sure about is that the new iPhone, whatever it is called, has a lot of work to do if it is to compete with the current king of the smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy S7. The Galaxy S7 has a better screen and a better camera and has made serious inroads in the enterprise market. No doubt Samsung is already getting ready to release the S8 so whatever the new iPhone is going to have, it had better be good!
