We are T-minus 10 hours until Apple blows the doors off its brand new Steve Jobs Theater at the brand new Apple Park corporate campus, home of the spaceship, to introduce the world to its new iPhones — and more. It’s at an extraordinarily inconvenient time for Aussies, but look, we’ll make do.
Here’s how you can tune in, when you can tune in, and what you can expect to see.
Live Stream: How To Watch Online
To watch Apple’s iPhone 8 announcement, you can tune into the live-stream here. Apple’s live-streaming protocol uses HTTP Live Streaming tech, and that means you’ll need to watch with the Safari browser on any iOS or Mac or Apple TV. If you don’t have a Mac, you’ll need a PC running Windows 10, so you can use the Microsoft Edge browser.
My personal recommendation for anyone on Windows is to just use Edge — give it a try. It’s no Chrome, but it’s not bad at all. Of course, you’ll get that truly Apple experience by watching on Apple hardware — I’ll have my iPad Pro hooked up and streaming away.
Start Time: Sorry, You’ll Be Up Early
The Australian start time for Apple’s September event is 3AM AEST, and the same time applies to Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Hobart. That’s 2:30AM ACST in Adelaide and Darwin, 1AM AWST in Perth, by the way, for everyone else.
Rae and I will be up and awake and live-blogging from about 2:30AM, so if you’re going to be tuning in, come and keep us company in the comments! I’ll share a link to our live blog here when it goes live.
What To Expect: Well, New iPhones…
It should come as no surprise that Apple will almost definitely be announcing not one but two iPhones at its overnight event. All our best guesses point to the iPhone 8 being a very similar hardware design to the iPhone 7, with upgraded hardware and some fancy new tech like Face ID facial recognition. But the star of the show will be the iPhone X — or iPhone Ten? — with a new OLED display that covers much more of the face of the phone.
Beyond the new iPhone 8 and the iPhone X, both of which are as good as certain, it’s also likely we’ll see a new Apple Watch — likely one with an integrated 4G SIM that will let you take calls, send messages, stream music and keep up with your social feeds from your wrist whenever you’re away from your phone. It has genuine value, too — it’s a big selling point for the Huawei Watch 2. We’ll also see more of iOS 11, the newest update to Apple’s platform that promises some pretty fundamental changes to the way it works.
Both the new phones and Watch will likely use eSIM, potentially sharing the same mobile number and data plan with your smartphone or tablet. Australia’s telcos are working on eSIM support, and it’s likely to roll out from at least some carriers at the start of next year. Telcos have a love-hate relationship with eSIM — it makes selling and activating devices especially easy, but by the same token it makes it especially easy for consumers to switch carriers on a whim. When it happens, expect to see loyalty bonuses come back big-time.
Oh, and a 4K Apple TV.
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2017/08/apple-iphone-8-rumour-roundup-everything-we-think-we-know/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/hzee9rwy5xoep5gfu71r.jpg” title=”Apple iPhone 8 Rumour Roundup: Everything We Think We Know” excerpt=”With a new iPhone due out later this spring, the Apple rumour mill is hitting peak froth. Not only does 2017 mark the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, but after the iPhone 7 didn’t deliver as much of an improvement over the iPhone 6s as people expected, there’s a lot riding on Apple’s upcoming crop of handsets. So to give you the best idea of what Apple might actually announce this spring, we’ve sorted through all the whispers and hints on the net thus far.”]
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/i-refuse-to-believe-this-rumour-about-the-iphone-with-no-fingerprint-reader/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/hzai9u46bwy4jqjm6dps.jpg” title=”I Refuse To Believe This Rumour About The iPhone With No Fingerprint Reader” excerpt=”The Wall Street Journal has the latest rumour on the iPhone 8 — likely the last big rumour floated before the phone is announced on September 12. According to the WSJ, the anniversary iPhone will have no Touch ID, which means your fingerprint will not be used to unlock the phone.”]
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/apple-just-leaked-ios-11-and-looks-like-were-getting-an-iphone-x/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/y2al3jfuqlelkkdzxune.jpg” title=”Apple Just Leaked iOS 11 And It Looks Like We’re Getting An ‘iPhone X’” excerpt=”Surprise! The Golden Master build of iOS 11 leaked online Friday night, with users spreading links to the software on Reddit. It’s full of details about the upcoming line of products being teased for the company’s September 12 event, including that Apple appears poised to skip releasing a 7s line entirely and move directly to the iPhone 8.”]
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/apple-iphone-day-2017-cheat-sheet-what-to-expect/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/jepje3faimrbn9alphba.jpg” title=”Apple iPhone Day 2017 Cheat Sheet: What To Expect” excerpt=”Apple’s iPhone 8 event is coming up fast, and we’re expecting Tim Cook and company to announce far more than new handsets. Here’s a quick primer.”]