Get Your Wallets Ready: Apple’s ‘Big Week’ Starts Monday

Apple CEO Tim Cook has tacitly confirmed a recent report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman that Apple has a “flurry of new products” in store for next week — and that the fun will kick off on Monday morning.

Cook teased the news this morning in a brief tweet saying that we can expect “A big week ahead,” accompanied by a video that shows what looks very much like a set of fingers transforming a plain aluminum lid of a MacBook into an Apple logo.

Naturally, the Apple chief executive isn’t going to spoil any surprises, but it’s also not exactly a big secret that Apple has a relatively large number of products waiting in the wings. This makes the question more about how much we’ll see unveiled next week and which new products Apple plans to save for later.

Earlier this month, Apple sent out invites to a ‘Special Apple Experience’ on March 4, a boutique event in New York, London, and Shanghai that kicked off much speculation as to precisely what the company had in store that was important enough to fly in members of the media from all around the world.

Many initially expected that would be an isolated event tied to a single product launch, until Gurman dropped the news over the weekend that Apple was actually planning to unveil new products over three days. This would presumably be done through newsroom announcements, similar to what it did for its Week of Mac in 2024, with the Wednesday event putting a bow on it by giving the press some hands-on time. This also suggests the biggest reveal likely won’t come until that day.

As for what’s coming, it might be easier to make a list of what not to expect next week. Apple has new products in the pipeline in nearly every category: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Studio Display, and Home. About the only areas likely to be left untouched are the Apple Watch and AirPods. Here’s a quick recap of what’s almost certain to be on deck:

1. The iPhone 17e: While the iPhone 17e didn’t materialize on the rumored Feb 19 anniversary date of its predecessor, there’s no doubt it’s still coming. In fact, it’s probably ready to go, and Apple artificially delayed it to save it for next week. The latest budget iPhone model is expected to look and feel much like the iPhone 16e, but with a faster A19 chip, Apple’s new C-series and N-series communication chips, and — most significantly — MagSafe charging.
2. The 12th-generation iPad: This spec bump iPad has also been in the cards for a while, and although it’s expected to be visually indistinguishable from last year’s model, the expected addition of an A18 chip will at least bring Apple Intelligence support, making it the last Apple device to join the party. Better late than never, we suppose.
3. The M4 iPad Air: Apple’s midrange tablet is getting an M4 refresh on schedule, but expect a repeat of last year’s M3 iPad Air, which changed nothing but the chip.
4. The M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro: By most estimates, Apple’s most powerful M5-powered MacBooks are well overdue. Apple released a 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro on schedule last fall, but the M5 Pro and M5 Max variants were nowhere to be seen, marking the first split release since Apple unified the lineup in 2023. Most sources suggested that’s because the M5 Pro/Max needed a bit more time in the oven thanks to a new SoIC-mH packaging process that splits the CPU and GPU. That could allow the new MacBook Pro models to be offered in more chip configurations, but otherwise they’re expected to be much the same as the current M4 Pro/Max variants. The bigger changes are expected later this year.
5. The New MacBook: This could be the single most exciting product next week, not for what it can do in terms of technical capabilities, but for what it brings to the table. Rumors of a budget MacBook in the sub-$800 price range have been circulating for months. It’s expected to be powered by an A18 Pro chip and designed to compete with Chromebook for education, enterprise, and more casual users who don’t need the extra power offered by the MacBook Air. It’s also expected to feature a new aluminum construction technique and come in some fun colors. However, the real buzz here will be about how an iPhone chip is now powerful enough to deliver a full macOS experience, and it’s not hard to imagine how this may be the one device Apple wants members of the press to see for themselves.
   

While it’s a safe bet that we’ll see most, if not all, of those five products, Apple has a few other things in the works that could show up next week, but could also easily be held off until later — if for no other reason than to avoid playing all of its cards at once.

That includes a new Apple Studio Display and Mac Studio. Sources say both of these are practically ready to ship, or at least close enough that Apple could easily announce them and just set pre-orders a bit further down the road. That makes them solid candidates for next week, but also potential distractions from the things Apple really wants to focus on.

Then there are Apple’s home products. By all accounts, a new HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K were ready to go last fall, so they could land any day. However, the common theory among analysts is that Apple is holding these back until it has its so-called “HomePad” home hub ready to go, since that’s expected to be the anchor of its new home ambitions. This device is expected to pack in Apple Intelligence features and rely heavily on Siri, which has made it a casualty of the challenges Apple has faced in getting its voice assistant ready for prime time, and likely turned the HomePod and Apple TV into collateral damage, holding them back until the entire family is ready to make its stage debut.