Apple will hold a “special Apple experience” event on Wednesday, March 4. But it will seemingly not announce new Macs or other products at the event itself.
Instead, they will be announced earlier in the week. Apple apparently does not even intend to hold a keynote on March 4.
An unusual strategy for Apple
Apple typically unveils new products at its events. And when the company sent one for March 4, many assumed it would announce the long-overdue M5 Pro/Max-powered MacBook Pros, iPad 12 and more at the event.
However, Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber and Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman think otherwise. They believe Apple will unveil new products on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (March 2-4) via press releases.
Then, on March 4, it will hold an in-person event for select creators and media folks to “experience” these products.
.@Gruber’s “spitball guess” (Product announcements Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and a hands on with everything on Wednesday) is exactly what I am expecting based on what I’ve heard. No real keynote either. https://t.co/Epf2AZTR9D pic.twitter.com/2z4ebK2IyO
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) February 18, 2026
This could also explain why Apple is holding in-person events in New York, London and Shanghai on March 4. Typically, it holds product launch events at its headquarters in Cupertino.
Based on this information, Apple may unveil the iPhone 17e on Monday, new MacBook Pros and a cheaper new MacBook on Tuesday and iPad 12 on Wednesday.
Press releases are the new norm
Apple has increasingly used press releases to announce hardware refreshes, especially when the updates are iterative rather than groundbreaking. Recent Mac and iPad updates arrived quietly through Apple’s newsroom instead of during a keynote.
A staggered rollout would allow Apple to dominate tech headlines for several consecutive days instead of compressing everything into a single keynote. Each product would get its own spotlight and its own news cycle.
With most of the products only getting chip upgrades and internal improvements, it makes sense for Apple not to hold a keynote. The low-cost MacBook, while a big deal for consumers, does not warrant a full-stage keynote on its own.
Rajesh has been writing about consumer technology for over a decade, with a strong focus on iPhones, Macs and Apple’s ecosystem. He enjoys digging into Apple software updates, hardware changes, and discovering new Mac apps that make work faster and more enjoyable.
