Apple will hold a “special Apple Experience” on Wednesday, March 4 — but the company might not announce new Macs or other products at the event.
Instead, Apple might announce the events earlier in the week in a series of press releases. The company apparently does not even intend to hold a keynote on March 4.
‘Special Apple Experience’ is an unusual strategy
Apple typically unveils new products at its events. And when the company set one for March 4, many assumed it would unveil 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 theorize that Apple will unveil new products on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (March 2 through March 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 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.
Adding weight to this theory, The official Apple Events page makes no mention of anything happening on March 4.
Based on this information, Apple might unveil, for instance, 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 only entirely new product supposedly on the agenda — a rumored low-cost MacBook — might be a big deal for consumers, but it does not warrant a full 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.
