The 5 biggest announcements from Apple’s 2024 iPhone event

We’re in the first half of September, which means shorter days, increasingly rubbish weather, and new iPhones to compete for your cash.

Apple’s ‘It’s Glowtime’ event was a busy one, as the Cupertino giant unveiled the iPhone 16 to the world for the first time, as well as the Apple Watch Series 10 and next-generation AirPods. As expected, the company also talked a lot about Apple Intelligence and how it will be baked into its latest devices.

We watched the whole event and picked out the biggest announcements...

1. The Apple Watch Series 10 sizes up and slims down

It’s been 10 years since Apple normalised taking phone calls from your wrist and getting serious about step counts, with the original Apple Watch first shown off to the world back in September of 2014. To mark this occasion, Apple is equipping its latest wearable with its largest display and thinnest design yet. The Apple Watch Series 10 has even more screen than the Apple Watch Ultra, allowing you to see more of your apps without needing to scroll.

On top of this, the S10 is also the first Apple Watch to employ a wide-angle OLED display. The new display is 40% brighter when viewed at an angle, so will appear much clearer when you’re glancing at your Watch on the go. It also updates once per second so you can watch the ticking second hand in real time, even when the device is in an ambient state.

Under the hood is the new S10 chip, which is predictably more powerful and efficient than anything that’s come before it. It also sports smaller redesigned speakers (which Apple says won’t affect performance), and for the first time you’ll be able to play your music and podcasts directly from the watch’s speakers. Handy if you can’t be bothered grabbing your AirPods from the other room.

The headline new health feature is (subject to FDA approval) sleep apnea detection. Sleep apnea is a condition that can cause breathing to suddenly stop or be shallow during sleep, which can majorly disrupt the quality of your shuteye. The Apple Watch S10 uses sensors to monitor a user’s breathing while asleep and alert them to any warning signs of sleep apnea.

The Apple Watch Series 10 starts at £399 for the GPS-only model, with Apple introducing a jet black polished aluminum colourway for the first time.

2. The AirPods 4 are closer to Pro than ever

Apple’s AirPods are as popular as ever, and with the AirPods 4 the gap between the regular and Pro model has shrunk. Still open-air in design, Apple says its latest AirPods are the most comfortable yet, and they feature improved sound quality and support for personalised spatial audio.

Confusingly, there will now be two versions of the non-Pro AirPods, with Apple introducing a noise-cancelling model that sits between the entry-level model and the AirPods Pro. The AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) cost £50 more than the non-ANC variant, with both versions sporting the H2 chip. There is support for the Conversation Awareness feature on the more expensive AirPods 4, which automatically reduces the volume of your audio when you start talking to someone, and Adaptive Audio, which were both previously exclusive to AirPods Pro. You also get Transparency Mode, which lets the outside world in when ANC isn’t practical or safe.

When iOS 18 arrives, both the AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro will benefit from a new Siri feature that lets you nod or shake your head in response to the assistant’s announcements.

With a battery life of up to 30 hours with the USB-C charging case, the new AirPods 4 start at £129 and will be available to buy from September 20.

3. The iPhone 16 Pro's display adopts a 'bigger is better' approach

The latest iteration to Apple’s flagship iPhone is here, and if you were hoping to use last year’s case when you upgrade, forget about it, as we’re getting new, larger display sizes on both Pro models. The smaller iPhone 16 Pro features a 6.3in display (up from 6.1in), while the Pro Max is now a nearly 7in behemoth at 6.9in (up from 6.7in), making it the largest display size on any iPhone to date.

The other significant hardware addition is the new Camera Control button, a touch-sensitive bar that sits below the Power button and is flush with the side rail. The latest iPhone button allows you to quickly tweak your camera settings from one place, making the phone feel even more like, well, a camera. You can press it to take a photo or hold to start recording a video. You can also zoom in and out by sliding your finger along the button.

The iPhone 16 Pro models feature an upgraded A18 Pro chip, with Apple promising better-than-ever battery life on the 16 Pro Max. Apple has also chosen to reverse last year’s decision to outfit the Pro and Pro Max with slightly different camera systems. They now both get a 5x telephoto camera for big zoom, an improved 48MP ultrawide camera and a 48MP “Fusion” main camera.

The iPhone 16 Pro is built from the ground up to leverage Apple’s soon-to-launch AI features under the banner of Apple Intelligence. First detailed at WWDC earlier this year, Apple Intelligence makes Siri much smarter, summarises text so you don’t have to, and lets you create custom emojis on the fly. While Apple prioritises on-device processing for privacy reasons. Apple Intelligence also integrates with ChatGPT for more advanced tasks.

The iPhone 16 Pro starts at £999 and will be available to buy from September 20.

4. The iPhone 16 gets two new buttons

Don’t want to shell out for the eye-wateringly pricey iPhone 16 Pro? You’ll be glad to know that the regular iPhone 16 is also rocking the new Camera Control button discussed above, as well as the Action Button that was introduced on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro phones. This button can be customised to act as a silent/ring switch, torch, Focus mode toggle and more.

Unlike the 16 Pro, the iPhone 16 sticks with the 6.1in and 6.7in display options from last year, which means you now have four different iPhone display sizes to ponder. Good luck with that. The new A18 chip is 30% faster than the iPhone 15’s CPU while using less power, while the GPU is 40% faster and also more efficient than its predecessor. These improvements mean the iPhone 16 can run AAA games like Resident Evil 4 and Assassin’s Creed Mirage, both previously Pro iPhone exclusives.

The iPhone 6 sports a dual camera system, with the 48MP main lens combining with a 2x telephoto lens to form what Apple calls its Fusion camera. The second lens is a 12MP ultra-wide, complete with a macro mode that comes to the non-Pro iPhone for the first time.

Perhaps the biggest iPhone 16 news of all, though, is that Apple Intelligence features will also come to iPhone 16, powered by the A18 chip. Initially it had looked like only Pro owners would enjoy the new and improved Siri and the various other benefits Apple Intelligence will bring when it arrives later this year via a software update.

Made from aerospace-grade titanium and available, as ever, in a variety of funky colours, the iPhone 16 starts at £799 and will be available from September 20.

5. Everything else

There was no significant overhaul to the Apple Watch Ultra, which no longer boasts the largest display on an Apple Watch, but it does now offer an eye-catching satin black finish. And while the AirPods 4 were the big story here, the AirPods Pro 2 will soon double as a hearing aid, offering an on-device hearing test and hearing protection features that are turned on by default. Rounding out the AirPods announcements were new colours for the AirPods Max over-ear headphones, which now (finally) charge via USB-C.