Apple has scheduled a product launch event, dubbed an “Apple Experience”, . The company is reportedly holding this event in .
Everyone loves shiny new products, so what can we expect to see at Apple’s first launch event of 2026? We don’t know anything for certain, but we have plenty of educated guesses that have been sourced from industry reports and speculation from analysts.
Budget-Friendly MacBook
There have been rumors swirling that Apple is preparing to launch a cheaper alternative to the MacBook Air. Bloomberg all the way back in November. Industry rumors indicate that Apple will be stuffing this laptop with an iPhone processor, the A18 Pro, to keep the price down.
It’s also been suggested that this laptop will only include 8GB of RAM, which kind of flies against the company’s recent stance to . However, that would certainly help with the cost. You might have heard about a little thing called AI that .
TechRadar has reported that this could be , with potential initial shipments hitting 8 million units. The price is likely to be somewhere in the $699 to $799 range, which is pretty nifty. However, I’d still go for an Air at $999. They are .
MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and Max chips
It’s likely that Apple will release more powerful MacBook Pro models this year and the timing seems to match up. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and the event is on March 4.
The company has already released a , but both the M5 Pro and Max are likely on the horizon. We could be getting new laptops outfitted with these chips in various display sizes.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
There have also been reports that both of the higher-end M5 chips to help improve heat dissipation and reduce defective chip rates. Additionally, the new chiplet design would allow the M5 Pro and Max to raise the total number of CPU and GPU cores. The Max is expected to have more cores than the Pro.
This idea is helped along by the fact that MacBook Pro M4 Max orders . This is typically the case with an outgoing model as stock dries up to make room for new releases. Also, the Pro and Max variants typically get announced in the Fall, so we are due.
New iPads
Rumors have been circulating that , including an update to the base model and the Air. The standard model, which would be the 12th-gen release, is expected to an A18. This should also allow for the integration of Apple Intelligence tools, .
Nathan Ingraham for Engadget
As for that iPad Air, rumors suggest from the M3. An extremely light tablet with an M4 would be fairly notable in my estimation, as only the .
iPhone 17e
It was almost exactly a year ago that , so you know what that means. It’s time for a refresh. Recent reports have suggested that an announcement , so this launch event seems like as good a place as any to reveal the latest smartphone.
As for specs, Mark Gurman has suggested that it’ll be , which is nice. Also, it could be getting MagSafe support. That sounds like an iterative upgrade, but the price is expected to remain steady at $599.
Other Possibilities
The following stuff is less likely, though certainly possible. There have been rumors that a revamped Studio Display and Mac Studio desktop. The reports suggest a release sometime in the first half of the year, and March is right in the middle of that timeframe.
It’s also possible that the company will reveal an upgrade to the . Reports indicate that this is unlikely to happen during this event, but it is worth noting that the M4 Air came out in March of last year. In other words, it’s a toss up.
What’s not a toss up? You shouldn’t expect anything regarding the long-anticipated Siri refresh. This looks to be a hardware event, so any software updates will likely have to wait until WWDC this summer. In any event, Engadget will be on hand to report on all of Apple’s new products.
