The iPhone 17 family of smartphones is set to arrive in a matter of weeks, but Apple has big plans beyond that.
As well as revealing how the company intends to make the iPhone foldable in 2026, in his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has outlined a whole host of other devices that Apple has planned for the months and years ahead.
“As for Apple’s other devices, there’s a lot in the pipeline for as early as this fall,” he writes, while cautioning that many are “only incremental upgrades”.
Wearables, smart home devices and computing
This year, we can expect not only the usual annual Apple Watch updates, but also HomePod minis, a faster Vision Pro, and the first Apple TV box refresh since 2022.
Speaking of things that haven’t been updated in three years, we’re also set to finally see a new set of AirPods Pro. Gurman once again notes that AirPods Pro 3 will feature heart-rate monitoring, presumably alongside the usual improvements to sound quality and battery life.
However, those deep in the Apple ecosystem may not benefit from this headline feature if it’s implemented in the same way as on the company’s recent PowerBeats Pro 2. Buyers of these sporty earbuds discovered that heart-rate data is only taken from the buds if there’s no Apple Watch to draw from.
On the computing side, Gurman cites a number of things in passing: the M5 iPad Pro for this year, and “updated iPad Airs”, the M5 MacBook Pros and the M5 MacBook Air for next. Enticingly, he also mentions “major Mac accessories in the works”, namechecking a “fresh external display” as one of them.
While he doesn’t go into more detail here, Gurman mentioned two test panels back in March, with the codenames J427 and J527. Given that the $5,000 Pro Display XDR arrived six years ago, this feels long overdue.
Also mentioned here is the “very-much delayed” HomePod with a screen. Though this could be a very simple mini screen as seen on a prototype back in 2023, Gurman says it will “thrust Apple into competition” with Amazon and Google, so it’s likely something more akin to the Nest Hub and Echo Show. A report last year suggested an OLED panel of six to seven inches in size, which sounds promising.
Then there are products that are “even further down the road”: smart glasses, a cheaper version of Vision Pro, AirPods with cameras, a giant foldable iPad, a home security camera system and that tabletop robot.
There is, however, one thing missing from this list that will disappoint audiophiles.
What about AirPods Max?
Apple’s over-ear headphones, the AirPods Max, will celebrate their fifth birthday this December. But barring a small refresh where the Lightning charging port was subbed out for USB-C, Apple has yet to make any changes.
Given their weight, fans of AirPods Max have been hoping for a lighter version, along with five years’ worth of sound quality improvements. But they’re set to be disappointed, according to Gurman.
“The reality is that the headphones are in an odd spot commercially,” he writes. “They’re too popular for Apple to stop selling them, and they’re not popular enough for the company to invest a ton of time and money into creating a new version.”
As a result, it just makes more sense for Apple to put its audio resources where the money is: its various in-ear AirPods. “That means fans of the AirPods Max will probably have to keep waiting,” he concludes.
