On Tuesday, Apple will hold its annual iPhone event, the company’s seventh virtual launch in a row due to the pandemic.
Analysts predict that the company will release new iPhones as well as updates to its AirPods and Apple Watch.
Apple’s hype-filled fall launches have become synonymous with the company. They garner worldwide media attention, millions of views on YouTube and Apple’s website, and set the stage for a holiday marketing blitz during the peak season for Apple’s sales.
As people work from home, Apple’s product segments have all been on a tear this year. Last quarter, iPhone revenue increased by 50% year over year, while Mac and iPad revenue increased by 16% and 12%, respectively. Its “other products” business, which includes devices such as watches and AirPods, increased by 40% year on year. Apple can maintain its momentum by releasing a slew of new products in time for the holidays.
The iPhone is Apple’s most important product, accounting for half of the company’s 2020 sales. Until last year, the company had announced new models in September of each year since 2012.
Apple released four iPhone models last October: the $599 iPhone 12 mini, the $829 iPhone 12, the $999 iPhone 12 Pro, and the $1,099 iPhone 12 Pro Max. The iPhone 12s were all equipped with 5G connectivity and a new, more squared-off design.
This year’s lineup is expected to be similar to last year’s, with the same screen sizes and prices. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, a leading Apple analyst at TF Securities, the big change this year could be a smaller notch cutout at the top of the iPhone’s screen, which houses the device’s facial recognition cameras. Since its introduction in 2017, the size of the notch has remained constant.
According to Kuo, the new iPhones may also have larger batteries and a slightly heavier weight due to a new internal-space-saving design. According to Kuo, new iPhones will almost certainly include camera and processor upgrades, as they have in previous years.
The design will also include a slight increase in screen size, which equates to 16% more pixels on the watch’s display. According to Bloomberg, Apple will introduce new watch faces to take advantage of the larger screens, including one that will allow users to see all 24 time zones at the same time.
AirPods are an important part of Apple’s wearables business, which is expected to generate more than $30 billion in annual revenue in 2020, a 25% increase over 2019. Despite the fact that the product is becoming increasingly important to Apple, the company hasn’t released new AirPods since October 2019, when it introduced the higher-end AirPods Pro with a new design and noise cancellation. In March 2019, the most recent regular $159 AirPods without noise cancellation were announced.
In September 2020, Apple updated the iPad Air, a midrange option, with an edge-to-edge screen. At the same event, Apple updated the chip in its most affordable iPad, a $329 tablet known simply as the iPad. These are due for an update this fall, but it’s unclear whether that will happen on Tuesday or at a later event. However, the iPad Mini, which was last updated in March 2019, is the most in need of a refresh.
The iPad Mini may be redesigned by the end of the year to look more like its siblings.
According to the report, it will not have a home button and will have a squarer design similar to Apple’s iPad Air and Pro. That means it could have a fingerprint reader built into the power button, similar to the iPad Air, or Face ID, similar to the iPad Pro.
Apple occasionally launches new services in the fall, such as Apple One, its subscription service bundle that debuted last year. However, the major iOS update is announced in June at the company’s developer conference and is usually released to everyone in the fall.
There’s one more wildcard. The 16-inch MacBook Pro laptop hasn’t been updated since November 2019, and it still uses Intel processors, despite the company’s shift to its own chips in laptops and desktops.
However, Apple has not released new Mac computers at the same time as new iPhones in the last decade. If new Macs are in the works for the fall, there may be a separate event in October or November.
