Apple CEO Tim Cook talks design in opening remarks
Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the launch event with a short speech about how the company thinks about design, saying that it’s “at the core of everything we do.”
“Design has always been fundamental to who we are and what we do for us,” Cook said. “Design goes beyond just how something looks or feels. Design is also how it works.”
He said Apple would launch new Apple Watches, iPhones and AirPods on Tuesday.
Apple’s most famous designer, Jony Ive, who left the company in 2019, is now working with rival OpenAI on new competing hardware products. — Kif Leswing
Apple’s YouTube livestream racks up viewers
Apple streams its launch events on its website and YouTube, which publishes a viewer count. Minutes ahead of the event start time, there were over 650,000 people on the YouTube stream. That figure shows there is still intense consumer demand to learn about the latest Apple products. — Kif Leswing
Wedbush’s Dan Ives expects iPhone prices to go up ‘about $50 to $100’
Investors will be apathetic towards the Apple event if there are no new major hardware updates, said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives on CNBC’s Halftime Report on Tuesday.
He predicts that Apple could raise iPhone prices due to tariffs.
“Probably going to be about $50 to $100 given the tariffs issues,” Ives said. — Kif Leswing
Steve Wozniak spotted at Apple Park
Steve Wozniak famously founded Apple alongside the late Steve Jobs in a Cupertino garage. He hasn’t been involved on a day-to-day basis in decades, but he’s an important inspiration to Apple employees and fans.
— Kif Leswing
Apple customers aren’t buying phones for AI, Evercore’s Amit Daryanani says
While Apple’s AI hasn’t lived up to expectations, customers will still upgrade their iPhones to improve battery life, Evercore’s Amit Daryanani said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Tuesday.
“End of the day, when it comes to iPhones or Apple products, in every survey we have run, the top two reasons people want to buy a new iPhone is: The battery life is very bad or they need a new screen,” Daryanani said.
“AI and Apple Intelligence is the fourth or fifth reason why they want to buy,” he continued.
— Kif Leswing
iPhone prices in focus
Wall Street Journal tech columnist Joanna Stern said Apple’s launch event has to deliver for investors and consumers, but price stability will be a key point of focus.
“In a world of tariffs, in this world of the economy, that’s pretty amazing for Tim Cook,” Stern told CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange.” “So I think that’s going to be a big thing that investors should be looking at, right. The prices of these phones: Are they inching upwards without any real significant feature increases? That’s going to be a tougher sell.”
Stern said that without major design overhauls or new types of devices that drive excitement, she expects the launch to be “the same as the last many iPhone events.”
“People are going to upgrade because they need a new iPhone, but people are not going to be running out to buy these phones if they don’t need a new phone,” she said.
— Chris Eudaily
Tim Cook posts a photo of a sunrise over Apple headquarters
Apple CEO Tim Cook always posts a photo from Apple Park, in Cupertino California, on launch days.
— Kif Leswing
Cupertino headquarters preps ahead of launch event
Apple campus ahead of the iPhone 17 launch.
Steve Kovach | CNBC
It’s dark and a cool 67 degrees at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters ahead of the iPhone maker’s “Awe dropping” launch event.
CNBC’s Steve Kovach reports that staff are setting up breakfast before the crowds arrive. The campus will soon be packed for the expected announcement of new iPhones and Apple Watches.
— Chris Eudaily
Peter Andersen says the iPhone event is ‘ignoring the elephant’ of Siri and AI
Andersen Capital Management founder Peter Andersen said he was disappointed in the iPhone maker’s lack of attention to software and artificial intelligence ahead of the launch event.
Andersen told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” that the focus on hardware was “kind of a head fake and ignoring the elephant in the room, frankly, which is: Where is Siri?”
“As AI continues to develop, they are obviously standing in the background. So they will attempt to focus the fact of new penetration and that the hardware offers new innovations, but in the long run, I do really think they have to focus on the software development,” he said.
Read more on CNBC PRO.
— Chris Eudaily
Apple’s new iPhone software is the biggest visual change in over a decade
Apple iOS 26 redesign
Source: Apple
Even if iPhone users aren’t planning to buy one of the new devices the company announces on Tuesday, they should expect their phones to get a drastically different look later this week.
That’s because Apple will likely roll out its iOS 26 operating system after its iPhone event, and that software update will include the most drastic visual change to the iPhone’s interface in a decade.
Revealed in June, Apple has created a new visual language that it calls Liquid Glass. The new look replaces formerly opaque static buttons throughout the iPhone’s operating system with transparent graphics designed by Apple to have detailed, liquid-like animations.
So far, Liquid Glass has had mixed reviews from early adopters who have tried it out in beta versions, but when Apple releases the new software this month, millions of people will experience it for the first time. Apple is hoping that they will find it “delightful.” — Kif Leswing
How much will the new iPhones cost?
The Apple logo, taken at the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.
Sven Hoppe | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
The biggest question Apple investors and customers have about this year’s iPhones is how much they will cost.
Consumer products, including apparel, footwear, coffee and game consoles, are seeing price increases driven by tariff costs. Some Wall Street analysts are counting on Apple to follow.
Most analysts expect Apple to raise prices on some of its models as it grapples with the Trump administration’s tariffs. The company said in July that tariffs could cost it over $1 billion this quarter.
But if Apple does raise prices on its phones, don’t expect the company to blame the change on tariffs. More likely, Apple will highlight the phones’ new technology, as well as their chips.
“No one’s going to come out and say it’s related to tariffs,” said IDC analyst Nabila Popal.
It’s also possible that Apple might eliminate the entry-level version of some of its phones, forcing users to get more storage at higher starting prices. Apple typically charges $100 more to double the amount of the iPhone’s storage from 128GB to 256GB.
One possibility, JPMorgan analysts have said, is that Apple could eliminate the 128GB version of the iPhone Pro, which currently costs $999 for the iPhone 16, meaning consumers would have to pay $1,099 for an iPhone 17 Pro that has more starting-level storage than its predecessor. — Kif Leswing
Apple’s fourth phone conundrum
Apple has released four new phones at its September events since 2020. But not all four iPhone models are equally popular.
Every year, one of Apple’s models tends to lag its siblings in terms of sales, according to analysts. This year, it’s been Apple’s tweener model, the iPhone 16 Plus, which costs $899. That’s higher than entry-level models with smaller screens but less than Apple’s Pro models that feature higher-quality screens and faster chips.
Before the Plus lagged, Apple offered a “Mini” phone with a smaller screen at its lowest entry-level price. That Mini model also failed to produce strong sales.
This year, analysts have said they expect Apple will mix up its lineup yet again, replacing the “Plus” with a slim model that could be called the “Air,” like Apple’s thin laptops and iPads.
The idea behind the slim model is that consumers will give up some battery life and features, such as multiple camera lenses, for a more lightweight iPhone. Apple’s expected entry into the market comes after rival Samsung released a similar device called the Galaxy S25 Edge earlier this year.
“While we acknowledge that a thinner device would introduce a relatively new form factor for the iPhone, we think that it will have a muted impact on consumer purchasing decisions,” UBS analysts wrote in a Sunday note. — Kif Leswing