John Ternus's first Apple event is built around a foldable and the Pro line

Apple's autumn product event on 9 September will be the first keynote run by John Ternus as chief executive. The invitation line is "Surprise and Shine." The theatre is the Steve Jobs auditorium at Apple Park. The stream starts at 10 a.m. Pacific, 10:30 p.m. in India, on Apple's site, the Apple TV app and YouTube.

Ternus took the chief executive title on 1 September after 15 years of Tim Cook. Cook stays as executive chairman with the China and Washington files. Ternus was the hardware lead who stood on stage for years to talk aluminium, batteries and cameras. Wednesday is the first time the product list is his to defend as the person at the top.

The expected list is narrower than a classic September. Bloomberg and the usual supplier notes say Apple will show the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max and the company's first foldable phone, referred to in leaks as iPhone Ultra, iPhone Fold or iPhone Duo. The standard iPhone 18, a second iPhone Air and the 18e are being pointed toward a spring 2027 event. That split would leave September as the expensive half of the year and the holidays as a Pro-and-fold season.

The foldable is the item that will dominate the first hour if it appears. Leaks describe a book-style device that opens from about 5.5 inches to about 7.8 inches, a hinge meant to disappear, a 2-nanometre A20 processor, Touch ID and a 48-megapixel camera. Price talk starts above $2,000. Samsung, Google, Huawei and Xiaomi have sold folding phones for years. Apple is late on purpose. The bet is that a hinge that does not crease and a chip that can run on-device models will make the delay look like patience.

The Pro models are expected to keep last year's basic shape and add a smaller Dynamic Island or an under-display Face ID camera, more RAM for on-device work, and camera software aimed at people who already own last year's Pro. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has talked about 9 GB of memory on some 18-series phones. Jeff Pu has talked about 12 GB. Both numbers are about running models on the handset without a round trip to a server.

Watches and earphones usually fill the last third of a September event. Series 12 and a fourth Ultra are on most lists. AirPods 5 appear on some and not on others. None of those products will decide whether Ternus's first morning worked. The foldable will. If it is not ready, the Pro phones have to carry a show that Apple billed as a surprise.

Cook's years were defined by services revenue and by making the same rectangle slightly better each autumn. Ternus inherits a company that now says it will ship new shapes through 2027, including home and health hardware that will not fit in a jacket pocket. Wednesday is only the first of those dates. It is also the first time a hardware engineer, rather than an operations chief, has to explain the price of a folding phone to a room that has heard every iPhone line since 2007.

The useful test after the stream is not the adjective on the invitation. It is whether the foldable is a shippable product with a price and a date, or a prototype that still needs a spring footnote.