‘California Streaming’ says Apple’s 2021 event invite, in a nice pun on the classic song California Dreaming. You can watch, along with the rest of the world, at 10:30 pm today on the Apple website.

There’s always a huge amount of excitement over one of Apple’s big events and this is certainly their biggest hardware event of the year. There are so many leaks and rumours at this time that one doesn’t know what to believe. It’s rather nice that at the end of it all, there’s still some mystery left and we won’t know for sure what Apple will really launch.

First of all, of course, is the next line-up of iPhones, which may or may not be named iPhone 13. Every year, after an event, one looks back and concludes that the changes to the iPhone are not really revolutionary but iterative — and then the iPhone goes and sells in record numbers anyway. It’s a feat just about no one manages to replicate, even though they try to imitate every bit of an iPhone. But now, Apple is facing a fair bit of pressure from Android, the production issues that the Covid pandemic brought in and has dropped globally to fourth place, according to a Q2 report by TrendForce . Is the drop because customers know the next iPhones are coming?

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This time’s line-up is still expected to come with those four models: Mini, 13 (or whatever), Pro and Pro Max. But there are a number of rumours that have been floated around about these. One is that there will be a diagonal camera set-up and perhaps some major camera improvements to cameras that were already considered by many to be the best in the business. Low light photography, in particular, is supposed to get a big boost, as would video recording. The display is said to be getting a smaller notch and a 120Hz refresh rate update — and it should, because in the Android world even some budget phones have this feature now. Android phones are also ahead in terms of their charging tech, and that is also something that might see an update in the coming iPhones.

The Apple Watch Series 7 is rumoured to be getting a big design refresh with a bigger, brighter display, which is closer to the surface and also flatter. The crown is said to be designed to be less protruding. But the most hype is about new health sensors such as body temperature and even blood glucose monitoring. However, the more sensible view is that there has been no news about approvals for such sensors for this year and that they are still a year away.

The AirPods may be launched in version 3 with design changes that include a shorter stem. There’s also speculation that there will be new iPads and other products, as the wait nears the end-point.

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