I’ve been disconnected a bit this week and amazingly (for me) I didn’t even know about the iPhone keynote on 13th October until last night.

For me, especially right now the iPhone 12 isn’t that interesting, I’m way more interested in what Apple has up its sleeve for audio.

iPhone (and smartphone) have peaked in my opinion. We have a glass slab with good cameras almost everywhere and aside from the neat tricks with foldable displays (I really want to test a Razr) it’s pretty boring.

I’m curious to see what Apple does to build on it’s skills in audio quality. I’m already a big fan of the sound coming from our HomePod and the AirPods Pro are one of my favourite products. Also let’s not forget how great the iPad Pro speakers are, I often just use them as a speaker.

I’m on the fence about a HomePod “mini”. I think the product makes sense (Siri jokes aside) and if it sounds good it’ll be an interesting device but I don’t see there being a market for it unless it’s sub £100. Everyone I know outside of tech are already on the Amazon bandwagon and Apple just won’t get those mainstream users. It’ll depend on what Apple wants to achieve in terms of sales numbers or can they treat it like a hobby? If they want to sell more Apple Music subscriptions they need to sell at a loss to get people bought into the ecosystem. But I don’t see Apple going this route and if it does get announced it’ll be £199-£250 with 6 months of Apple Music.

Now on the headphone front, over the ears is the rumour but for me it’ll depend on connectivity and price.

My over the ears are used for both music listening and production. I would like to either use them like I do my AirPods or plug them into my guitar effects unit via good old AUX. This is something I can obviously no longer do on iPhone but if Apple want to hit the most people they need to include a lead and AUX.

I can’t see Apple offering this as an option but we’ll see. Either way I predict a £299-£599 price point depending on if there are any options available for colours etc.

It’ll be an interesting keynote and one where I want to see some new products.