In what has become a predictable September tradition, Apple has announced its annual iPhone event for 9 September 2025, at 10 AM Pacific Time. You can stream it from Apple’s website, through the Apple TV app, or on YouTube, and Apple provides an easy way to add it to your calendar.
The event’s teaser title, “Awe Dropping,” was featured on invitations sent to select (meaning, “not us”) members of the media. Apple’s home page and Events page feature an interactive logo that changes colors when touched or hovered over, similar to the mood rings of the 1970s. The groovy effect might hint at new device colors, which would be a welcome change from the iPhone Pro’s palette of various shades of gray. It would be truly jaw-dropping if the iPhone 17 models featured thermochromic skins.
The event will undoubtedly focus on the iPhone 17 lineup, which rumors suggest will include a thinner iPhone 17 Air model replacing the Plus version. It’s also highly likely that Apple will unveil the Apple Watch Series 11, probably the Apple Watch Ultra 3, and possibly the Apple Watch SE 3. Other potential releases hinted at by the rumor mill include the AirPods Pro 3, an updated HomePod mini, and a refreshed Apple TV 4K.
Based on Apple’s typical schedule, expect pre-orders to start on Friday, September 12, with devices arriving on September 19. Apple will likely announce release dates for at least iOS 26 and watchOS 26 to accompany the new hardware, and I expect the rest of Apple’s operating systems to follow a similar release schedule.
If you’d like to kibbitz with other TidBITS readers during Apple’s event, join us on SlackBITS.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you mean by “invitation”, but I received an invitation to watch the event that described it as “Awe Dropping”. I’m not a member of the media, but I do have a developer account, so maybe that’s the explanation.
I may be wrong but I think he means Tidbits didn’t receive an official invitation — they’re not deemed worthy of ‘select’ media status. If true, it’s very disappointing. I think Tidbits should be part of the select Apple media — far more-so than some influencers who seem to be invited to everything.
Regardless, I’m keen to see what’s revealed this time around as I’m in the market for a new watch. Phones aren’t on my agenda but I’ve been considering the move from wired to unwired Airpods so I’ll be watching the new ones with interest.
Reminds me more of a heat map.
I just can’t see the connection to the expected iPhone Air, Watch 3, APP 3, silicon lanyards, or TechWoven cases (pffft). IR camera on the new AirPods?
What it really reminded me of, but which was too specific to use as an example, was a sticker I had that contained some thermochromic gel, so as you squished the sticker around, it would change colors in response to your finger heat.
The invite graphic is a heat map: a means of visualizing infrared radiation. Apple’s new Watch Pro and Airpods Pro may have instrumentation to detect ambient infrared radiation. Apple Health could have been trained with best practices to get sufficient IR radiation daily.
The easiest way to get IR radiation is to get out in the sun daily. An alternate way to get IR radiation is with a Red Light Therapy panel. One easy solution is to upgrade a few home LED screw-in bulbs to NIRA Lighting’s LED/Incandescent hybrid bulbs.
There are a bunch of papers about the impact of red and near-infrared radiation on our biology. The field is called Photobiomodulation; bit.ly/PBM-database is a Google Docs spreadsheet of the ~8800 or so papers that have been published about PBM. The tricky thing for Apple is to figure out how much Red and Near-infrared radiation is helpful for daily exposure. They could have been conducting clinical studies of this for several years. Some of the papers are really interesting, like Light stimulation of mitochondria reduces blood glucose levels (2024) and Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through the human body and have a systemic impact which improves vision (2025). By removing virtually all incandescent bulbs from our lighting, we have removed almost all infrared lighting from our homes and businesses. How large is the overall health impact of losing our indoor red and infrared light? The second question: how much value in Apple’s wearables and Apple Health enhancements can be achieved by influencing our habits to get more Red and Near-Infrared light?
IMHO, these are fascinating questions. From a company that spent great sums on an automobile, it makes sense to spend a few hundred million $$$ on health studies and first-class marketing to promote this hardware and software. It gybes with Tim Cook’s vague 2019 pronouncement that Apple’s greatest contribution will be in health. I’m mostly surprised that (AFAICT) no Apple websites anywhere have speculated about this.
