All the news from Apple’s ‘Surprise and shine’ event

Apple’s hosting its “Surprise and shine” launch event on September 9th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, where it’s expected to announce the first phones in its iPhone 18 lineup — including Apple’s first foldable , the rumored “iPhone Duo.”

This event will also be John Ternus’ first as Apple’s CEO after taking over for Tim Cook on September 1st. Ternus was previously Apple’s head of hardware engineering, and he spotlighted upcoming hardware launches in his first staff memo as CEO. All eyes will be on Ternus for a big first announcement to kick off the new leadership era at Apple.

Aside from new iPhones, the September 9th event could also include new Apple Watches and AirPods, and we’re keeping our eyes peeled for other possible surprises, like an updated Apple TV or new smart home hardware.

Follow along here for all the latest news and updates.

It’s an interesting video that gives you a better idea of how apps might look on the device. I really like all the different ways apps can appear based on the “pose” of the Duo, and I hope a lot of developers do the right things to make that all work. Apps that aren’t updated for iOS 27 SDK might look a little wonky, though .

There aren’t AirPods with cameras yet and I hope it stays that way

September Apple events are always a swirl of information and new, exciting products, and today’s was no different. Apple announced its first foldable, the iPhone Duo, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max; active noise cancellation (ANC) is now on the cheapest AirPods model, the AirPods 5; and a Siri Recap feature comes to the Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4. But missing were the AirPods Pro with cameras that have been rumored throughout the year and, according to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg , are delayed until 2027 . I’m happy about that and I hope we never get them.

I have too many concerns about a company — any company — putting cameras anywhere, especially in devices like earbuds that are now so ubiquitous in our daily lives. LED lights on glasses or earbuds do little to ease people’s minds when someone is recording them. And some Meta smart glasses users have shown people will hide their recording intentions . While recording in public in the US is generally legal, it can be very creepy. And with earbuds as common as they are, someone could wear them into sensitive situations unnoticed.

The black iPhone Pro returns

Apple has seen reason: It has a black model in the iPhone Pro lineup again.

Last year, Apple went bold with its colors for the iPhone 17 Pro, offering a flashy orange, a shiny silver, and a dark blue. Don’t get me wrong, they looked nice . But there was no black (or dark gray) for the first time since the start of the iPhone Pro lineup, which Apple first introduced in September 2019 with the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max.

The incomplete history of Duo devices

Apple announced the company’s first device with a folding screen today, the iPhone Duo , but that’s where the firsts end. The Duo is not only far from the first foldable on the market thanks to the efforts of Samsung and Google , but it’s also not the first product to be called the Duo.

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs popularized the saying “good artists copy, great artists steal,” but will the iPhone Duo’s folding screen, which features a custom nano-texture display material to help minimize the visibility of its crease, be enough to make us forget these other Duos that have come before it? Only time, or how aggressively Apple plans to market its Duo, will tell. Is there a Duo we missed? Let us know.

It’s the year of smartphone price hikes

Paying more for a new phone seems almost unavoidable after Apple’s event today. The new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max start at $1,199 and $1,299, respectively — a $100 price hike over their predecessors. You can’t dodge the price hike by opting for an older iPhone, either, because Apple raised prices on those by $100, too . And it’s not just Apple. This year, the $100 price hike has been a trend across the industry.

Google and Samsung followed the same formula as Apple when they each launched new phones over the past few months. The Pixel 11 starts at $899, up from $799 for last year’s Pixel 10. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra launched at $2,099, $100 more than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 it replaced.

With AppleCare One Family, which costs $49.99 per month, you get AppleCare Plus with theft and loss coverage for every “eligible” device for as many as six people in a family sharing group. Check out the full details on Apple’s AppleCare website .

Read the Apple document explaining how new listening features still protect your privacy

At Wednesday’s iPhone Duo launch event , Apple announced a handful of new Siri AI Audio Intelligence features , including Siri Recap, Live Rewind, Sound Recognition, and Music Recognition. Alongside its announcement, Apple released a document laying out how it plans to balance AI “ambient listening” and users’ privacy. It says the raw audio from the new features “is handled within dedicated hardware, is not saved as a file, and is not accessible to the operating system, apps, or Apple.”

Apple explains that Audio Intelligence relies on the Secure Exclave in the S11 chip that powers the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 :

How the new Apple Watches compare to the last-gen models

Apple rolled out the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 at its “Surprise and shine” event. The new watches feature sizable improvements to their health sensors and tracking, plus the ability to create brief audio transcriptions and summaries, plus a ceramic case option for the Series 12. Despite the new features, the watches start at the same base prices as their previous iterations. The Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 for the aluminum version without cellular, and the Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $799.

The biggest differences between the models are new features powered by the S11 processor. It supports the new Apple Intelligence features as well as more detailed health and fitness programs. The Apple Watch Ultra 4 also has longer battery life, up to 50 hours on a single charge, up from 42 on the Ultra 3. All the watches are slightly heavier, with the heaviest ceramic Apple Watch Series 12 sitting at 42.8 grams for the 42mm version and 52.9 grams for the 46mm version. The heaviest Apple Watch Ultra is 63.1 grams, up from 61.8 grams on the older model.

If you have an iPhone 14, 15, or 16 series phone, Apple will let you keep free access to satellite features for at least another year if you activated them before midnight PT on September 9th, according to Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro press release . The company has extended free access a couple times before .

Verge staffers react to the iPhone Duo: What we love and don’t love

Apple has just announced its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo. The new phone has a 5.4-inch outer screen and a 7.6-inch inner screen, two back cameras, Touch ID for authentication, an IP68 rating, and all sorts of slick software tricks to make iOS feel more at home on the new device. Preorders start on October 16th ahead of availability on October 23rd, and it starts at $1,999 for 256GB of storage.

It’s a huge announcement for Apple, and we have many feelings about it. Here’s our gut reactions to the phone. And let us know in the comments what you think!

Apple’s new iPhone camera mode promises to prove your photo isn’t AI

Apple is launching a new way to prove that the picture you took isn’t manipulated by AI. A new feature, called “Reference Image,” will arrive with the iPhone 18 Pro lineup later this month and is supposed to use the device’s new camera sensor to “sign every pixel it sees.”

The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will only authenticate photos when placed into Reference mode. Once the camera captures signed sensor data, Apple says its Private Cloud Compute will develop it “into an unalterable reference image” that can be viewed in the Photos app. You’ll be able to compare the reference image with other versions of the photo to see if any edits were made.

iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max: Our first hands-on impressions

We’ve just gotten our hands on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max at Apple Park following the company’s “Surprise and shine” presentation.

The new phones look quite similar to the previous iPhone 17 Pro lineup, keeping the same general design, aluminum body, and screen sizes. The 18 Pro lineup comes in four colors — black, silver, “glacier” (which is blue), and burgundy — and they now have color-matched glass on the back that blends in more seamlessly with the body.

Hands-on with the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4

After Apple wrapped up its “Surprise and shine” event today, we were able to get a look at the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.

Both of the new watches launch September 18th, with preorders available starting today.

Here’s how the new iPhone 18 Pro stacks up to the last-gen models

Apple’s release cadence for the latest iPhones is unusual. It’ll start with the 18 Pro models , then with the foldable iPhone Duo releasing in October for $1,999. It hasn’t confirmed when its base iPhone 18 model will launch. So this post is focused just on the new the 18 Pro and the 18 Pro Max.

Both phones are launching on September 18th, with preorders opening Saturday, September 12th. The 6.3-inch iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199, which is $100 more than last year’s phone. The 6.9-inch iPhone 18 Pro Max goes up to $1,299, another $100 jump.

Hands-on with the foldable iPhone Duo

The first foldable iPhone is finally here, and following its announcement, we got the chance to try the phone for ourselves. We’ve long been told that Apple would make a foldable iPhone once the tech was good enough — has it been worth the wait?

It definitely feels like something different. The inner screen has a decidedly matte finish that handled even some glare from the windows above the hands-on area well. The folding mechanism is smooth, and even IP68 rated, and the crease is almost impossible to find with my finger. The 5.4-inch outer screen looks petite by modern slab phone standards.

Apple is raising iPhone prices by $100 on all of its old models

Following Apple’s “Surprise and shine” event that saw the announcement of the iPhone Duo and the iPhone 18 Pro , the company increased the price on all of its last-gen iPhones that are still available for purchase.

The iPhone 16 sold for $699 just last week, and now it’s up to $799. The iPhone 17E with 256GB of storage now costs $699 instead of its launch $599 price. The iPhone 17 starts at $899 with 256GB of storage instead of $799. The trend continues up the ladder with the iPhone Air, which now costs $1,099 instead of $999.

Apple skips the base iPhone 18 at its fall launch event

Apple is taking the unusual step of skipping the base iPhone 18 this fall. At its “Surprise and shine” event today, the company revealed the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max , alongside the new foldable iPhone Duo . But the base iPhone 18 was a no-show. Rumors had suggested Apple would only launch premium iPhones this fall, with the base model slipping to next spring.

Instead of announcing the iPhone 18 today, Apple has raised the prices of its existing iPhone 17 models by $100. Even the older iPhone 16 that’s still on sale has gone up by $100 compared to last week, back to its original $799 starting price.

Apple brought ceramic back for the Series 12

The Apple Watch Series 12 is launching with a ceramic option, making it the company’s first wearable since 2019’s Series 5 that can be configured with the pricey, scratch-resistant material. It can be configured with either pearl white or night blue ceramic finishes, and it starts at $899 , going up to $949 if you purchase the 46mm size.

While Apple didn’t resurrect its “Apple Watch Edition” branding for the Series 12 (it stopped using the name in a forward-facing manner when the Series 4 launched), the new ceramic option is similarly made for high rollers who won’t mind shelling out far more than the Series 12’s $399 starting price.

Apple completely revamped iOS 27’s controls and apps for the iPhone Duo

Obviously, part of the appeal of a foldable phone is all that additional screen real estate. That gives you plenty of room for some serious multitasking that just isn’t possible, or at the very least is clunky, on a smaller screen. Apple rarely does things without seriously considering all the implications, so it was never just going to shove iOS as-is into its new foldable.

The company didn’t have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel, however. It already had a mobile OS capable of multitasking in iPadOS, which was built on iOS to begin with. The company even said that the iPhone Duo was designed to be “as natural and intuitive as iPad.”

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is ready for the new Siri

Apple announced the next version of the rugged and durable Apple Watch Ultra at today’s “Surprise and shine” event.

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 features a design that’s nearly identical to last year’s Apple Watch Ultra 3 but is powered by Apple’s new S11 processor, which replaces the aging S10 chip first introduced with the Apple Watch Series 10 in 2024. The S11 will bring some much-needed performance improvements to the Ultra 4 ahead of Apple’s upcoming watchOS 27 release that will include the smarter and more capable Siri AI assistant announced at Apple’s annual WWDC earlier this year .

iOS 27 launches on September 14th with Siri AI

Apple is launching its next iOS 27 update on Monday September 14th. The headline feature is Siri AI , the delayed AI-powered overhaul of the Siri assistant. Siri AI is rolling out with iOS 27 as a beta, available initially for English-only devices. Apple says support for French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish is coming in October.

Siri AI isn’t the only big feature in iOS 27 , though. Apple is adding a new Liquid Glass opacity slider that lets you pick between a clearer UI or a more frosty one. A lot of built-in apps are also getting new icon designs, with subtle tweaks to colors.

Apple Watch Series 12 has an always-on Siri that makes AI recaps of your day

Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 12 at its September 9th launch event, with Siri AI-powered Audio Intelligence as the highlight feature. The new abilities include a Live Rewind feature that allows users to view a transcript of the last 15 seconds of recently detected audio and view a text transcript of it on their watch by double-pressing its Digital Crown button. There’s also a Siri Recap feature that uses “ambient listening” to take notes on audio from your watch, with summaries in the Siri app.

Apple announces AirPods 5 with ‘best-in-class open‑ear active noise cancellation’

Today, Apple announced the AirPods 5 , updates to the AirPods 4 series that was first released in 2024. Apple says the new buds feature “best-in-class open‑ear active noise cancellation.”

The AirPods 5 are redesigned with a new acoustic architecture, upgrades to adaptive active noise cancellation (ANC) with 50 percent better noise reduction than the AirPods 4, and improved sound.

Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro has a dynamic aperture main camera

Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max at its event on Wednesday. The 18 Pro and Pro Max come in deep black, silver, “glacier,” and burgundy, with color-matched back glass. They also have a new A20 Pro chip and purportedly the longest battery in an iPhone. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 for 256GB, a $100 increase over the iPhone 17 Pro, while the 18 Pro Max starts at $1,299, also for 256GB. Both models will be offered in 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB configurations. Preorders begin on September 12th ahead of availability on September 18th.

During Wednesday’s presentation, Apple highlighted how the new phones are well-equipped to work with Apple Intelligence and Siri AI , including Siri AI’s more expressive voices.