A new year, a new beginning. As we wind down 2024, take a breather and prep ourselves for 2025 where big, new challenges await for all of us. On the surface level, Apple might play the same song year in and year out, but there are a lot of subtle changes that will change the ship’s direction. Although we would love to read about drama and dramatic changes, boring leadership is good leadership. Let’s find out what is in store for Apple in 2025.
Apple Events
Apple is a large company and Tim Cook’s leadership style is pretty much button-down. So you can predict which product will go at what time of the year. These offerings might look boring, but having a known schedule makes it easier to plan for upgrades. However, occasionally, Apple does pepper the schedule with some surprises. In 2024, the most pleasant surprise was the $599 M4 Mac Mini with 16GB of memory, which cements as the most value-for-money computing in the industry.
| Season | Month> | Expected | Actual Event Date | What Actually Happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | January / March | MacBook Air with M4, Vision Pro updates? | ||
| Summer | May / June | iPad updates, WWDC 2025, Mac Studio with M4 Max / M4 Ultra, Mac Pro with M4 Ultra / M4 Extreme, new Displays? | ||
| Fall | September | iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, Apple Watch, Apple Watch Ultra, AirPods Pro | ||
| Winter | October | Macs with M5, Other Apple Updates? |
Product Update
Apple announced new announcements every quarter while remaining low-key through the rest of the year.
Q1: Leftovers Update
After the holidays, a new year and a new determination to accomplish things. At this point, Apple usually updates things that are left out during the holiday season. We expect MacBook Air, Apple’s most popular laptop to be updated to the new M4 chip. There’s also a possibility that the iPads are getting new updates. We might see the first M5 chip on the iPad Pro. The new M5 might run on the 3rd generation 3nm manufacturing or first generation 2nm, depending on how well TSMC is doing.
Q2: WWDC and Pro Products
Apple presents WWDC in June every year and there is no reason for Apple not to do it again this year. Although the main focus of the event will be software that will see the light in September or October, Apple does sometimes launch new hardware in WWDC. We expect Apple will update the Mac Studio and Mac Pro which is still running the M2 generation of Apple Silicon. With the performance crown currently on a MacBook Pro that is running a M4 Max, Apple is quite motivated to push the benchmark up with a higher-performing desktop chip like the M4 Ultra or even M4 Extreme.
Q3: iPhone, actually
Like clockwork, Apple’s best-selling product in history, the iPhone will get an update in September. Some might say the age of smartphones is over, but I think it is still here. No, there will not be explosive growth year-over-year or big design changes, but smartphone sales, especially iPhones, are not slowing down.
Apple’s formula for the iPhone is simple: new top-of-the-line features on the Pro models and trickle-down features on the base model. There will also be a headline feature for each generation. I think Apple has a few innovations that it plans to bring, but decided to drip the features out over a few years instead of one big push. 2024 was the Camera Control button. The year before is the USB-C port. The year before that was the 48MP camera and Dynamic Island. You get the point.
For iPhone 17, it should be Apple’s first 2nm chip, the A18 Pro (and possibly A18 for the base iPhone) which makes the fastest and most powerful mobile chip in the industry. There might be an Air model which means the lightest and thinnest iPhone ever.
Q4: Macs and Closing Arguments
The fourth quarter of 2025 is when Apple will give updates on other items in their lineup to prepare for the holiday shopping season. This is where Apple would introduce updated Macs. There are the bread-and-butter Macs like the MacBook Pro, the iMac, or maybe the Mac Mini.
Conclusion
Apple, predictably will update their current lineup with more useful features. I don’t expect a new product line to appear as Apple has yet to make major inroads with the Vision Pro. The things that Apple bought in may be small, but this is Apple. It’s a big ship. Things take time to turn around, but when it does, it leaves a huge wake.