In just three days, Apple will hold a press event to announce its latest round of new products. We’ve seen the artwork, we’ve read the tagline (“Awe Dropping”), and we can be pretty sure the iPhone 17 will make an appearance. But everything else is shrouded in mystery.
Until now. Yes, that’s right. Once again, Macworld sent a team of hard-bitten journalists to rummage through the bins at Apple Park, and once again, they hit pay dirt: the full presentation script, storyboards, rehearsal tapes, props, costumes, one of those old-timey movie clapperboards, and several half-eaten sandwiches. We’ve eaten the sandwiches and used the rest to painstakingly construct a minute-by-minute simulation of the iPhone 17 launch event, which you can enjoy below.
Just to be 100 percent clear, this isn’t real. Our “script” is based on detailed analysis of credible leaks and rumors, with a few (hopefully obvious) jokes mixed in. Please don’t send in any more angry emails.
Introductory guff
09:58 a.m.: We’re live! The pre-stream is up and running. If you’re thinking the music sounds familiar, it’s “Platitude Queen” by Onion Terror. Which of course was used earlier this year in the opening credits of Apple TV+’s gritty remake of “Keeping Up Appearances.” What a triumphant performance that was from Margot Robbie.
10:00: The stream proper begins. Cut to a darkened city street. A young woman is jogging from streetlight to streetlight, glancing periodically at the workout stats on her Apple Watch Ultra. (Is that a bigger watch, or a small actress?) “You can do this!” the watch says, surprisingly. “Just one mile to go. Vitals steady. Plenty of energy left. You’re on track to beat your personal best!”
10:02: A middle-aged man on a graffitied subway train taps his AirPods. “Adjusting audio,” it says. “Blocking out the annoying guy next to you.” Now he’s in a restaurant. “Translating from Cantonese,” the headphones report, and he begins to order.
10:04: An elderly woman takes out her iPhone–which is in a case, so it’s hard to get a clear view of the design–and summons Siri. “Has there ever been a boy born who can swim faster than a shark?” she asks. “Still no,” Siri replies wearily.
10:06: And now the camera is flying through the clouds above Apple Park. It swoops down, and there, standing in front of the familiar rainbow sculpture, is Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Good morning!” he says. “We’ve got a fantastic show for you today.”
10:07: “Apple products make the world a better place,” Cook trills. “They play a vital role at work and in our free time. They help us to improve our health and stay in touch with loved ones. They put the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. And they deliver sustainable shareholder value by hitting high-margin KPIs going forward.”
10:09: Today’s event is going to focus on three areas, Cook says: iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. “To talk us through the exciting changes coming to iPhone, it’s over to Kaiann.”
Foundry
iPhone 17
10.10: Kaiann Drance, Apple’s VP of iPhone product marketing, has got the big gig once again, after presenting the iPhone 16 last year. She’s standing next to a colossal iPhone box and looks alarmingly enthusiastic.
10:11: “Thanks Tim, great to be here,” she says. “I’m super-excited to talk about iPhone! After last year’s thrilling iPhone 16 launch we sat down and asked ourselves one question: what’s the absolute minimum we could change and still have people upgrade their phones, thereby maintaining a sustainable long-term revenue stream?”
10:12: “And today I’m proud to reveal the answer to that question! Please welcome iPhone 17: Another Year Has Passed™.”
10:13: Time for a marketing video! And we’re seeing the new iPhone in all its glory. Which largely fits with the leaked images we’ve been bombarded with for the past three months: there’s a handsome new purple finish (here we go again; Apple tried purple on the iPhone 12 and 14, then gave up on the color for a while), the blue model is much paler, and pink has vanished altogether (boo!). But the essence of the design appears the same: the two rear camera lenses, for example, remain in the same vertical alignment as on the iPhone 16.
10:14: “iPhone 17 is our best ever iPhone,” Drance says smugly. “We took everything you loved about iPhone 16 and made it fractionally better. Our brand-new A19 processor delivers market-leading performance on even the most demanding apps, while an upgraded 24MP front-facing camera ensures the sharpest selfies you’ve ever seen.”
10:16: “And as for the screen… goodness me, what a transformation! For the first time ever on a non-Pro iPhone, we’re offering an always-on display, but that’s not all. All of this month’s new iPhones have LTPO screens with a stunning 120Hz rate and our popular ProMotion feature, so you can look forward to buttery-smooth animation while maintaining our usual exceptional battery life.”
10:18: Pre-orders for the iPhone 17 are open now, and it will ship on September 19. Prices start at $799 for the 128GB model, which is the same as the entry-level iPhone 16 last year. Evidently Apple managed to shrug off the effects of the tariffs, at least for now. That’s good news.
10:19: “That’s iPhone 17. We think you’re going to love it.”
iPhone 17 Pro (and 17 Pro Max)
10.20: Drance is sticking around, and we’re heading straight into the iPhone 17 Pro. No mention so far of the rumored iPhone 17 Air, but it’s a bit of a giveaway that the iPhone 17 was only shown in a single screen size. Presumably the Air will be announced later?
10:21: “Apple’s Pro series of iPhones are the industry standard for premium smartphone design,” Drance says. “In fact, they make even our standard iPhones look like disgusting trash. Needless to say, talking about the pathetic iPhone 17 just now was a real ordeal for me. So I’m excited to announce iPhone 17 Pro.”
10:23: We’re seeing the new handsets now. Most obviously, the rear camera module has been heavily redesigned: it’s now a broad bar that covers almost the full width of the phone’s back surface. (The camera lenses themselves, conversely, look the same.) And here too we’re seeing new color options, with the Pro models available in a startling new orange and a far more somber dark blue as well as the usual black, white, and gray. And… is that a smaller Dynamic Island?
10:25: We’re talking performance. Is the 17 Pro getting a bump from 8GB to 12GB of RAM, as rumoured? Apple tends to be cagey about such things. “iPhone 17 Pro is so powerful you’ll literally faint when you see it,” says Drance, unhelpfully. “The A19 Pro chip is faster than a peregrine falcon, which is the fastest animal on earth.”
10:26: “Many people think it’s the cheetah,” she adds. “But it’s not.”
10:27: Camera performance should see a significant improvement. Aside from getting the same 24MP selfie camera as the iPhone 17, the 17 Pro’s telephoto lens has been bumped to a whopping 48MP, up from the 12MP lens on the 16 Pro. That means superior zoom performance, Drance says the Pro models now have a 7x optical zoom before the digital version kicks in.
10:29: Here’s an interesting change: the iPhone 17 Pro gets a mechanical aperture, which means you can customize the amount of light allowed through. “This means an unprecedented level of control over the depth of field,” Drance boasts. We don’t know how this will work in practice, but on the Huawei Mate 50 Pro, you can choose from 10 steps between f/1.4 and f/4.0 or, as most of us will inevitably do, just leave the camera in auto mode.
10:31: “The iPhone 17 Pro has an industry-leading battery and will last you for a scarcely conceivable single day of usage before needing a charge. And charging is now faster than ever, thanks to a huge upgrade to MagSafe.” It’s been bumped from a maximum 25W to 50W, although this will depend on having a compatible charging puck (and power adapter) as well as the iPhone 17 Pro. You may just find a bottleneck in a different part of your charging setup.
10:33: We’re rattling through the iPhone 17 Pro’s other upgrades now. The screen has a new anti-glare finish (ahead of the event, we heard this was also going to be scratch-resistant, but perhaps Apple wants to avoid any references to its phones getting damaged). And there’s a new Apple-designed Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip, which Drance says will improve power efficiency.
10:35: “That’s iPhone 17 Pro: Anything Else Is Repulsive™. We think you’re going to love it.” It comes out on September 19 and starts at… oh wow, it’s $1,199 for the cheapest 17 Pro, a crazy $200 bump on last year’s model! Granted, you get twice as much storage (the 128GB model has been phased out), but still. The 17 Pro Max starts at $1,299, which is $100 more than the equivalent 16 Pro Max last year. This is a lot to take in.
New Apple Watches
10:36: Tim Cook is back. “Thanks Kaiann! We’re excited for you all to try out the new iPhone 17 range, which we expect to deliver profitable synergy in key market verticals and boost our customer retention analytics. Now on to Apple Watch, and for the last time, it’s over to Jeff.”
10:37: Wow, it’s Jeff Williams! Williams stepped down as Apple COO at the end of July, but he remains with the company until his retirement later this year. Clearly Cook persuaded him to do one last keynote before heading out the door. The man seems emotional: he’s taken off his shoes and one of his socks.
10:38: “Thanks Tim,” he says, visibly moved. “You know, customers come up to me, big customers, tall customers, tears running down their customer faces, and they say, Jeff, the Apple Watch Series 10 is the greatest smartwatch in the world! How can you possibly top that?! And I say, we’re looking into that very strongly.”
10:39: “So today, we’re proud to announce Apple Watch Series 11.”
10:40: Video time! And the new watch looks… exactly the same as the Series 10 from last year. No new colors: it looks to again be available in black, silver, and rose gold, plus the dark and light titanium finishes. Still, you know. It looks nice. It’s fine.
10:42: “Apple Watch is the most popular health device in the world,” says Williams. “It saves lives every day, and helps our customers to improve their fitness. And from today, those health benefits will become even more essential.”
10:44: The Series 11 has a new sensor that enables blood-pressure tracking, which could be pretty crucial in unlocking a range of new health features–not least the ability to detect hypertension and thereby predict strokes and heart attacks more accurately.
10:46: The new Apple Watch also gets a new S11 processor, inevitably, although the actual benefits of that are unclear. (Ever found your Apple Watch slow? Didn’t think so. Plus, pre-launch reports indicated that the S11 is essentially just a rebadged S10.) Whereas its upgrade to 5G connectivity is a nice surprise.
10:48: Oh, we’re done. “That’s Apple Watch Series 11. We think you’re going to love it.” It starts at $399 and will appear in stores starting September 19.
10:50: We’ve suddenly cut to yet another marketing video. Based on the colors—blue, yellow, pink—and general vibe, it’s surely a new SE model.
10:52: “We’re proud to announce Apple Watch SE 3,” says Cook. “You know, for kids.”
10:53: The SE has been completely redesigned. It’s made of plastic, and comes in a variety of bright colors. The display is bigger (up from 40/44mm to 41/45mm) to match the old Series 7 rather than the Series 5 which the last SE was based on. It also gets the S11 chip.
10:55: The new Apple Watch SE starts at $249. That’s the same price as the previous model, with the extra cost of the larger screen and the economies of using plastic presumably cancelling each other out.
Jim Martin / Foundry
10:57: We’re on to the Ultra now. And there’s a slight redesign here: namely, a larger screen. “Customers told us they loved the big, bright display on Apple Watch Ultra, but wondered if it could be even bigger? So we’re proud to announce that this year’s Ultra has 5 percent more screen real estate!”
10:59: The official line is that the screen size has increased from 49mm to 50mm. We understand that the resolution has gone up from 410×502 to 422×514, which is indeed 5.39 percent more pixels. And Williams insists the watch itself is no larger, thanks presumably to slimmer bezels around the screen.
11:00: The Ultra 3, unsurprisingly, also gets the same upgrades as the Series 11: the S11 chip, 5G, and the new blood-pressure monitor.
11:01: And we’re wrapping up for this section. “That’s Apple Watch Ultra 3,” says Williams. “We think you’re going to love it.” It starts at $799 and will appear in stores on September 19. It’s nice that the watches have escaped the price bump that hit the Pro iPhones.
AirPods Pro 3
11:03: We’re back to Tim Cook, who wipes a tear and does that namaste thing he’s so fond of. “Thanks Jeff, and enjoy retirement!” he says. “And now, on to AirPods.”
11:04: “AirPods stand for all that is great about Apple,” he says. “They are beautifully designed, supremely functional, and capable of sustaining high-margin profitability across key demos in challenging market conditions. For more AirPods news, it’s over to Kate.”
11:06: “Thanks Tim!” says Kate Bergeron, Apple’s VP of hardware engineering. (She announced new AirPods at the Glowtime event last year.) “Let’s talk AirPods Pro.”
Want a slimmer case? You’ll want the AirPods Pro 3.
Foundry
11:07: It’s video time, and we’re watching the new AirPods Pro swooping and floating around an abstract landscape. First things first, Apple hasn’t removed the stems to match the Beats Studio Buds, as was rumored for some time. It’s not a radical redesign, then. But there are some other noticeable changes: the buds now seem more streamlined, the charging case is a different shape, and they’re available in black!
11:10: “We know that the convenient, slimline charging case is one of the things you love most about AirPods Pro,” Bergeron says, not unreasonably. “So we decided to make it even better.” Confirmation that the new case is slimmer, much like the AirPods 4 case, and is paired by simply tapping the case rather than having a dedicated pairing button. And there’s no lanyard loop! Sad.
11.12: On to the earbuds themselves, which are getting a ton of new features. (This is what happens when you don’t properly update a product for three years.) It has a new H3 chip. There are heart-rate and temperature sensors. And, as rumored, it supports live translation!
11.14: “AirPods Pro deliver industry-leading audio quality,” Bergeron says, “and that’s truer than ever with the new third-generation model. You’ll feel like you’re in the room with your favorite artists thanks to the exceptional immersion of Spatial Audio.”
11.15: Active Noise Cancellation has been upgraded, too. “It will filter out all the background noises you want to avoid,” Bergeron says, “but with the latest version of Adaptive Audio, you can be as selective as you like.”
11.16: “That’s AirPods Pro 3. We think you’re going to love it.” Looks like this section (and perhaps the presentation?) is finished. The device starts at $249 and ships on September 19. Oh, but hang on: Bergeron just added that the live translation feature will arrive “later in the, or a, year.” It must have been delayed.
One more thing…
11:18: Cook is back. “Thanks Kate, and thanks to all of our presenters tonight,” he says. “We’re excited for you to experience all these great products and boost our Q1 top-line revenue performance in line with analyst expectations. And in the end, isn’t that what technology is all about?”
11.19: “But before we go, there’s just One More Thing I’d like to discuss…”
11.20: Video time. Ah, this must be the iPhone 17 Air at last. And what a beauty it is. It’s just breathtakingly slim. People are going to love this thing (although they may not love the compromises it comes with).
11:22: The 17 Air is wildly different from the other models in the range. Aside from being just 5.5mm thick, it has only one camera lens on the rear (inside an oddly broad module) and another on the front. Those are decent cameras, mind you: 24MP on the front, and 48MP on the rear.
11:24: It also has its own set of colors: the standard black and white, plus a light blue that, for some reason, is lighter than the one on the iPhone 17, and a light gold that doesn’t appear anywhere else in the current range.
11:26: No word on the battery capacity, but it must be far, far less than on the other models. Cook only says the Air will last “for a full day.” That’s not very reassuring.
11:27: If you’re worried about a repeat of Bendgate, it’s at least clear that Apple has taken that threat seriously. The Air has a titanium-aluminum alloy metal frame for added strength. (Plus, the even more slender iPad Pro which launched last year doesn’t seem prone to bending, so there’s that.)
11:29: “iPhone 17 Air delivers industry-leading performance in an unprecedentedly slimline package,” Cook boasts. What that means, apparently, is the A19 processor rather than the A19 Pro (and reportedly a slower GPU, although Apple won’t confirm that at this point).
11:31: “This is iPhone 17 Air: Oh God Why?™,” says Cook. “We think you’re going to love it.” It starts at $1,099. Oof! That’s a lot for a phone that really isn’t Pro-specced. Although it does get 256GB of storage as a minimum.
11:32: And that really is your lot. Cook thanks the presenters once again, then does a celebratory backflip. Stay classy, Cupertino!
Apple’s Awe Dropping event is set for September 9, 2025. Want to know what to expect? We’re anticipating new hardware releases including the iPhone 17 (running iOS 26), Apple Watch Series 11, Ultra 3 and SE 3rd-gen (running watchOS 26), and potentially new AirPods. Find out how, when, and where to watch the Apple September Event, and keep tuned to our Event Guide for all the latest coverage.
