It’s been a busy few days for Apple. The company has confirmed an “Apple Experience” on the 4th of March across New York, London and Shanghai (just don’t call it an ‘event’). iOS 26.4 is now in beta with a wave of smaller but meaningful changes sans Siri updates. While reports suggest some of Siri’s bigger upgrades may take a little longer to land. There’s also a wave of updates to Apple’s sport partnerships including a deal with IMAX and rumours of live, immersive races on Vision Pro.
One small ask. If you enjoy my weekly tl;dr of the latest Apple news, you can subscribe for free below. You’ll receive an email when I publish new content including the weekly tl;dr, a free monthly wallpaper pack for your Apple devices and more. Now…on with the show.
March 4th “Apple Experience”
Apple has officially invited press and a handful of creators to what it’s calling a special Apple Experience on Wednesday, the 4th of March at 9am ET/2pm GMT. This isn’t shaping up to be the usual polished, keynote complete with flyovers of Apple Park. Instead, it seems to be a coordinated, multi city hands on event. It’s scheduled to place across New York, London and Shanghai. The invite is intentionally vague, which usually means we’re getting a mix of announcements and live demos rather than one headline product drop.
Personally I suspect we’ll see Apple drop several announcements across the week with daily press releases. But in terms of what we can expect…
Return of the Mac
The star of the show will be the return of the MacBook. It was abandoned a few years ago, with the line split between MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. It’ll be a new low cost model, in bright, fun colours if the rumours are to be believed. And it may have an iPhone chip and a sub 13″ display to help keep costs down. Possibly an A18 or (hopefully) an A19 Pro. A price point of £599/$599 would see this sell like hot cakes. But I suspect it’ll be closer to £799/$799 and still sell well.
M5 Pro and M5 Mac MacBook Pro
The long awaited and now overdue spec bump for the MacBook Pro is likely to arrive at the event. The base M5 chip is already available in the smaller 14″ MacBook Pro. But higher end, more powerful chips have yet to materialise. Apple’s Pro chips typically offer twice the CPU and GPU performance of the base chips. And the Mac chips double things yet again.
We probably won’t see any major design changes or other significant feature upgrades. A much more compelling upgrade is said to come soon with the M6 MacBook Pro, sporting a thinner design and an OLED display. That’s not what’s happening with this update. But it would be a great surprise!
Wild card updates to Mac Studio and the Studio Display
Last year, Apple refreshed the Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra, which still stands as the most powerful chip it makes. Notably, there was no M4 Ultra. That wasn’t an oversight. Apple’s Ultra chips are essentially two Max chips fused together, and the M4 Max simply didn’t include the interconnect needed to pair them. No bridge, no Ultra.
That could change with M5. If the M5 Max brings back the necessary architecture, a new Mac Studio is a dead cert. Personally, I’d expect that to land at WWDC rather than a March event. It fits the audience and the timing.
There’s also the Studio Display. It launched in March 2022 alongside the original Mac Studio, so it’s starting to look its age. A refresh timed with an M5 Ultra Mac Studio would make a lot of sense. Technology wise, miniLED is likely. It offers deeper blacks and better contrast. If we’re lucky, we might even see ProMotion. A higher refresh rate would push the Studio Display closer to “pro” territory. Whether Apple goes that far is another question. It would be welcome though.
iPad and iPad Air
New base iPads and an iPad Air refresh feel almost inevitable now. The big change for the entry model is expected to be the A18 chip. On paper that sounds like a routine spec bump. But it would bring the base iPad into the Apple Intelligence era and, eventually, it should support the new Siri. It would mean that all new iPhone, iPad and Mac models support Apple Intelligence.
Beyond the chip, there hasn’t been much noise. But we can at least expect the price to stay exactly where it is. The 11th gen iPad sold incredibly well over the holidays. Apple won’t want to mess with a formula that clearly works.
As for the iPad Air, expect something similarly restrained. The most likely upgrade is the M4 chip trickling down from last year’s iPad Pro. Major design changes feel unlikely.
Would I love to see ProMotion make its way to the Air? Absolutely. Even mini-LED has been floated, possibly reusing panels from the M1 and M2 iPad Pro era. Although if memory serves, miniLED was limited to the larger Pro model back then. Apple could mirror that approach with the Air. Realistically though, that feels unlikely.
iPhone 17e
Lastly, but by no means least, we should see Apple replace the iPhone 16e with the iPhone 17e. It’s anticipated to retain the same price point of £599/$599. But should see some welcome upgrades including the A19 chip to match the iPhone 17, MagSafe which was a notable omission from the 16e and a move to Apple’s latest networking chips and modems.
Design changes and display upgrades are unlikely. We probably won’t see ProMotion on the iPhone 17e. There’s the possibility that it receives the dynamic island. But that I suspect is unlikely to happen this year. I think the 17e will be a pretty modest update. But the addition of MagSafe would be welcome. If only Apple would drop the price by £100…
iOS 26.4 beta 1 is here. But new Siri is not.
This week the first beta of iOS 26.4 beta 1 arrived. It contained a surprising number of new features. Notably without and Siri updates. Though my view on that is that Apple never claimed the Siri overhaul would arrive with iOS 26.4. That was pure speculation and educated guessing amongst analysts. Here’s what we did get:
- You can now play video episodes right in the Podcasts app and switch between watching and listening. Episodes can be downloaded for offline viewing, thanks to HTTP Live Streaming tech.
- Playlist Playground lets you ask Apple Music to generate playlists from a text prompt or suggested ideas.
- Expanded concert/tour discovery in Apple Music and a refreshed look for albums and playlists.
- New Home Screen widget for ambient music playlists.
- The extra security layer Apple introduced in earlier releases now activates automatically after the update, requiring biometric unlock for certain sensitive access like the Passwords app or Find My.
- iOS 26.4 beta 1 enables testing of end to end encrypted RCS messages. At first this works only between iPhones in beta, but it’s a step toward broader secure cross platform messaging.
- Wallpaper selector has a redesigned gallery layout.
- The iCloud section in Settings now shows a dedicated iCloud.com option with an “Allow Search” toggle.
- Freeform gets enhanced tools for Creator Studio subscribers, including AI assisted image creation and new creative assets.
- Reminder Smart Lists (like Urgent) arrive and other small app UI updates.
- New localisation files and under the hood code changes hint at future features like CarPlay video support. One plucky developer has even shown this off already.
Apple partners with IMAX for F1 coverage
Apple’s push into live sports gained new traction this week. Alongside its ongoing Major League Soccer and Formula 1 coverage, it’s now rolling out Formula 1 on a much bigger scale. Five of this seasons Grand Prix’s will be live broadcast in IMAX theatres in the USA.
By bringing F1 on Apple TV live to IMAX theaters nationwide, we’re delivering the energy and excitement to even more screens in a truly immersive way”.
Apple Services VP Oliver Schusser
That’s where recent rumour chatter comes in. A few commentators have pointed out that the timing of Apple’s March 4 “Apple Experience” aligns almost perfectly with the start of the 2026 Formula 1 season. Based on that, there’s speculation Apple could use the event to demo immersive F1 viewing on Vision Pro, giving media and press a taste of what a fully spatial, race day experience could feel like on the headset. It’s just a theory, but it would be a way to bring the F1 IMAX experience to the living room. And serve as a vital showcase of the Vision Pro’s untapped potential.
Support AppleTLDR 🧃
If you found value in this content and enjoy what I create, please consider leaving a tip if you can. Or share this post on your social media platform of choice. Tips support me as a content creator and helps to keep the site ad free along with occasional sponsors. Sharing my content helps others to discover it. You can also subscribe to my site for free so that you don’t miss future posts. Your support is very much appreciated.
Comments