Apple Is About to Refresh Its Entire Hardware Lineup. What Do We Still Not Know?

Got your seat ready?

In recent years Apple has rarely managed to surprise anyone. The last-minute suspense and the sense of an event that Steve Jobs worked so hard to protect have been worn away by a steady drip of leaks from the supply chain. As Apple grows, that seems unavoidable.

This year is no exception. Six months ago the news about three new iPhones had already leaked, piece by piece, and by now dummy units have made the rounds through tech bloggers' videos and social media.

All three new iPhones use the industrial design of the iPhone X — a notch at the top (most people call it the bangs) holding Face ID and the camera, narrower screen bezels, and rounded corners.

The iPhone X will be replaced by a nearly identical successor, still 5.8 inches with an OLED screen. Apple will also release a 6.1-inch version with an LCD screen at a lower price, plus a 6.5-inch high-end version at a higher one.

Going by the usual rhythm, this is an off year for the iPhone: the gains will be inside the phone, not in its design. One thing is certain — the iPhone is getting a faster, bigger processor, the A12 chip.

The invitation sent to reporters carries the line "Gather Around," which may hint that products other than the iPhone are due for an update too.

QDaily is already at the venue for Apple's fall event. At 1 a.m. tomorrow, Apple will announce its products at the Steve Jobs Theater inside its new headquarters, Apple Park.

Beyond what you already know, what questions does Apple's version of the Spring Festival Gala leave unanswered, and what deserves the closest attention? We've picked out these nine.

What will the three iPhones be called?

The iPhone X marked the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, and its name skipped straight past the iPhone 9, which left the iPhone naming system broken and confusing.

Bloomberg reported this week that this year's low-priced 6.1-inch iPhone will be called the iPhone Xr; it did not explain what the R stands for. The 5.8-inch model will be the iPhone Xs, and the 6.5-inch model the iPhone Xs Max.

That matches an earlier 9To5Mac report, in which people familiar with the plans said Apple wants to drop the "Plus" name. Earlier still, word had it that the 6.5-inch model would be called the iPhone X Pro and the low-priced 6.1-inch model the iPhone Xc, which would mean reviving the iPhone 5c line.

Each of these guesses sounds plausible, and none of them is satisfying. Try saying a tongue-twister like "iPhone Xs Max" three times in a row.

This year's three iPhones can all be read as iterations of the iPhone X, with little left connecting them to the iPhone 8 and everything before it, so a name with an Arabic numeral looks unlikely. And going from one model to three, the iPhone needs new names.

What those names are, we won't know until tonight.

What makes the cheap iPhone different?

Slightly against intuition, this year's cheapest iPhone is not the smallest one. Veteran leaker and former KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says the 6.1-inch LCD model will lead with colorful shells, a bit like the old iPhone 5c. He says it will come in at least five colors — white, gray, blue, red and orange — and photos of real units later published by Slashleaks show a black version as well.

The three iPhones look exactly alike from the front, so the steps between them matter more than usual, especially for the cheap one. Apple has to balance a delicate relationship between how many phones it sells and what they sell for on average.

So how does the cheap iPhone come across as cheap and worth the money without eating into sales of the expensive ones? On specs, the two pricier iPhones will certainly carry the newest A12 processor. Last year the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X had very similar CPUs and cameras, so this year all three new iPhones will most likely use the A12 as well.

The A12 should also take up a big share of the keynote. Supply-chain sources say Apple will use a 7-nanometer process, which most chipmakers cannot manage right now; Qualcomm and MediaTek have pushed their own plans to 2019. The A12 is expected to make the new iPhones 20% to 30% faster.

If that holds, the difference in the cheap iPhone will show up in the screen and the shell.

From the leaked photos so far, the back of the cheap iPhone looks a lot like the iPhone 8, with a single camera, while the other two have shells of glass and aluminum alloy. Those two also use stainless steel frames, which look more expensive.

The screen is the other main difference. An LCD will not have the vivid colors of an OLED, and Apple's production schedule is said to have slipped over problems with the LCD's irregular cutout and its resolution.

But what the three iPhones will actually feel different at, and whether the difference will be obvious enough to push someone toward buying at all or paying more, we won't know until everyone sees the real thing tonight.

How far apart will the prices sit?

Back to the 6.1-inch iPhone X: calling it cheap may only be true in comparison. It is unlikely to be a genuinely cheap iPhone. Ming-Chi Kuo's predicted price steps are $600 to $700, $800 to $900, and $900 to $1,000 for the three models.

In other words, the so-called cheap iPhone only lands around the starting price of the lowest-configuration new iPhone in past years, perhaps a bit under it.

For the past few years the launch price of a new iPhone in China has been 5,288 yuan, so this year it may break below 5,000 yuan. But it will not be held under 4,000 yuan the way the iPhone SE was.

How will dual-SIM dual-standby work?

System code is an endless source of leaks, and what comes out this way is usually accurate. 9To5Mac found the new iPhone's dual-SIM dual-standby secret in the iOS 12 beta.

How would it work? There are two possible approaches: two card slots, or one card slot plus an eSIM built into the body of the iPhone.

Word going around from Chinese carriers points to the first. Apple has never managed to get the eSIM legalized in China; the Apple Watch Series 3 stalled for the same reason, and so far only China Unicom offers standalone cellular service, in a few cities.

The eSIM is clearly the better solution, because it saves space inside the body. But given China's rules, Apple may sell a China-only version with two card slots and use the eSIM everywhere else.

Will the iPad Pro switch to USB-C?

The basics of the iPad Pro should hold no surprises either.

It follows the iPhone X's design, with narrow bezels and no Home button. Because it is big, the iPad has room for the Face ID components even with the bezels narrowed, so it does not need a notch the way the iPhone does.

According to leaked code, the new iPad's Face ID recognizes a face from all four orientations, while the iPhone X supports only one. Which makes sense: the iPad's display already rotates through all four.

There will still be two sizes, though "the small one gets bigger and the big one gets smaller": 12.9 inches and 11 inches. The 11-inch has the same body as today's 10.5-inch iPad Pro with a larger screen; the 12.9-inch keeps its screen and shrinks its body.

Because the internal layout has changed as well, the contacts for the Smart Keyboard have moved to the back of the device.

The bigger question is whether the iPad will switch to a USB-C port. Apple started using USB-C with the 2016 MacBook Pro but has not brought it to other products. The iPad Pro is the logical next step, since Apple wants to position the tablet as a work tool, like the MacBook.

And will the small iPad mini get an update? Cult of Mac's sources believe there will still be an iPad mini, but with the old design — no Face ID, no edge-to-edge screen.

Besides a bigger screen, what else does the Apple Watch get?

The Apple Watch's health features keep growing, and it now has standalone cellular service, but the first three generations still look too much alike; on a wrist, you can hardly tell which one it is. With the third, Apple added a red dot to the crown. That's something, I guess.

The fourth generation should change more. In a report this March, Ming-Chi Kuo said the Apple Watch's display area will grow by 15%. The 38mm and 42mm cases stay the same size, but the screens grow from 1.5 and 1.65 inches to 1.57 and 1.78 inches.

So the outside stays the same while the display fills the whole front, in a rounded rectangle that matches the rounded corners of the iPhone X. And because the outside doesn't change, every existing band will still fit.

Apple will also keep the rotating crown, but the physical button below it will disappear, replaced by haptic feedback that gives you the sensation of a press when you touch it, much as the iPhone 7 did away with the Home button.

9To5Mac later pulled code out of a watchOS beta showing the Apple Watch's resolution at 384x480, against 312x390 on the current model.

A bigger screen means some adaptation work for developers; the display modules in some apps will break.

But who expects a watch to show large amounts of content — to read books or watch videos on it? The real point of a bigger-screen Apple Watch is probably differentiation and looks, so it is visibly not the last one.

Is there anywhere else for the Apple Watch to go? As a product built around health, it has long been rumored to be getting more biometric sensors, for measuring blood sugar, for example.

Will the MacBook Air change its name?

The MacBook Air came out in 2008 and has seen almost no major upgrade in ten years. It was updated once last year and remains one of the few Apple products without a Retina display. After the new MacBook Pro arrived in 2016, the 11-inch MacBook Air was discontinued for good.

Several outlets, Bloomberg among them, report that the MacBook Air will finally improve this year, with narrower screen bezels and a Retina display at last. MacWorld says its performance will rise sharply too, with an Intel Whiskey Lake processor, a USB-C port and a butterfly keyboard.

It will be an upgraded version of the current MacBook Air and a cheap version of the MacBook Pro. The price is expected to hold at 6,835 yuan. Bloomberg says the new MacBook Air will aim at the education market, going up against Google's Chromebooks alongside the education-edition iPad.

But will it still be called an Air? Air used to stand for thin and portable, as with the now-retired iPad Air. In Apple's naming today, Air stands for wireless instead, as in AirPods. And the thinnest Mac is in fact the 12-inch MacBook, which makes the name MacBook Air look out of date.

Either way, the MacBook Air has not disappeared, and Mac laptop buyers still have one option that is cheap and gives you plenty.

Is the Mac mini getting more expensive?

Bloomberg's sources say Apple will upgrade the Mac mini line this year as well, raising its performance so it stands with the iMac Pro and the MacBook Pro as a machine for professionals, though it may not appear until October.

It would be the Mac mini's first update in four years. The mechanical hard drive will give way to an SSD, and the parts already found elsewhere in the Mac line — a Thunderbolt 3 port, a stronger CPU and graphics chip — will show up here.

A big overhaul could well change the shape too, though no further leaks on that have surfaced.

Aimed at professionals, the Mac mini is bound to cost more. But without a display, it is still the entry-level choice next to the iMac Pro.

Two products already announced but not yet on sale

The AirPods wireless charging case and the AirPower wireless charging mat. Apple promised that these two chronic procrastinators would go on sale in 2018.

The charging case moves the charging indicator to the outside and supports Qi wireless charging; there is nothing else notable about it. The second-generation AirPods are unlikely to show up this year. They are said to add noise cancellation and better water resistance.

The AirPower will charge an iPhone, an Apple Watch and AirPods at the same time, and the reason it keeps failing to reach the market may be heat.

Cover image via Pixabay