Apple’s First Post-Cook iPhone

Apple (AAPL) has set its next launch event for September 9 at 10 a.m. PDT at its Cupertino headquarters. The media invites carry the tagline “Surprise and shine” and a glowing Apple logo. Analysts expect new iPhones and Apple Watches, including Apple’s first folding phone and (drumroll please) Siri AI: the LLM-based personal assistant Apple introduced at WWDC in June.

This will be Apple’s first launch event under new CEO John Ternus. Tim Cook becomes executive chairman of the board on September 1; Ternus takes the CEO job the same day, which puts his first keynote eight days into his tenure.

Under Cook, Apple’s market capitalization grew from roughly $350 billion to $4 trillion, annual revenue nearly quadrupled from $108 billion to more than $416 billion, services grew into a business larger than $100 billion a year, and the active installed base passed 2.5 billion devices. The machine Ternus takes over runs beautifully. The question hanging over it is AI, and the two most-watched items on the September 9 rumor sheet (a folding iPhone and an LLM-powered Siri) are both bets Apple placed under Cook. Ternus gets to deliver them.

Apple announced new Mac Mini and Mac Studio models with AI upgrades this week. They ship on September 22.

I am completely over being an Apple fanboy, but I’m really hoping I love, want, crave, care about, consider purchasing, get excited about, or just think I need the rumored folding iPhone.

One other thing: AI at the edge is going to happen over the next couple of years. Apple’s launch event is going to teach us a lot about what that means.