What to expect from Apple's iPhone event on September 12th

Another September, another iPhone event, right? Well, not exactly. Apple celebrated the iPhone's 10th anniversary earlier this year, and all of the rumors have pointed to a radically new and potentially very expensive smartphone to celebrate that milestone.

It's all but certain we'll see this new phone, but that's hardly all that we expect Apple to reveal next Tuesday, at the first event in the company's brand-new headquarters.

We could see two additional iPhones, Apple Watch updates, an upgraded Apple TV, details on the forthcoming HomePod speaker and possibly more.

Apple often likes to surprise us, after all. Here's what we think Tim Cook and company will bring to the table on Tuesday.

For years, Apple was on a "tick-tock" iPhone upgrade cycle. One year would bring a new design, while the following year would introduce under-the-hood upgrades to otherwise identical hardware. That changed last year, as the iPhone 7 was physically very similar to the 6 and 6S.

That, along with the iPhone's 10th anniversary, has set the stage for the line's most radical redesign yet.

As reported by both Bloomberg's reliable Mark Gurman and KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via 9to5Mac), the tenth-anniversary iPhone (which might be called the iPhone 8, iPhone edition, iPhone X or something else entirely) will feature a nearly bezel-less front display.

It's a feature that has rapidly become the standard on flagship handsets including Samsung's Galaxy S8, S8 Plus and Galaxy Note 8 as well as LG's V30 and G6.

This means the display will likely be the same size (or bigger) than the 5.5-inch screen on the iPhone 7 Plus, but it'll come in a form factor not much larger than the iPhone 7, which has a 4.7-inch panel.

The other big change from a display perspective is the technology powering the screen. The iPhone 8 should have an OLED panel -- a departure from the LCDs that have been used in every previous iPhone.

If the rumors are accurate, this will will only be the second product in Apple's lineup with such a screen, with the first having been the Apple Watch.

OLED screens have brighter colors, greater contrast and much deeper blacks thanks to the lack of a backlight. OLED panels are also thinner than LEDs, which is crucial for phones -- the less room the screen takes up, the more room there is for battery.

If this screen seems like the most radical change in the new iPhone, the removal of the home button will be almost as big a deal.

(ENGADGET)