Apple announces iPad Pro and Mac event as it prepares to release latest updates

Journalists gather for a product launch event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, on September 12, 2018 (NOAH BERGER/AFP/Getty Images)

Apple will hold its next big event at the end of the month, it has announced.

The launch – to be held in New York City on 30 October – is widely expected to see the unveiling of a new iPad Pro and fresh Macs.

It comes just a few weeks after Apple launched its new iPhones. And it will come just days after the release of the iPhone XR, a cheaper handset that Apple delayed despite launching alongside the XS in September.

The company is expected to release a new iPad Pro that will include the Face ID facial recognition technology found in the iPhone X. It will be slightly larger than the existing iPad, at 11 inches, but is expected to borrow the design of the iPhone and drop the home button so that it can have a larger screen in a smaller body.

The event will probably also see Apple finally replace the MacBook Air, which has gone mostly without updates for years. It will probably be swapped out for another small and relatively cheap MacBook, updated to include newer features like Apple's retina display.

Apple might also update the world on the Mac Pro that it said would be coming in 2019 but about which it has been surprisingly vocal.

It will be held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Apple rarely holds events outside of its home in California, especially since it built a devoted theatre on its new campus, though it revealed new iPads at an education event held in a school in March.

That education event, during which Apple revealed a different iPad update, was held in Chicago and was unusually not livestreamed. It did not say whether the October event will be shown online, though it is likely that it will be.

The company sent out personalised invitations to different media organisations to announce the event. All included an artistic variation on the Apple logo and a strapline reading "There's more in the making", suggesting – along with the venue – that the launch could be focused on creativity.

Apple's event will be held on the same day as rival OnePlus unveils its latest phone, the OnePlus 6T, in the same city and just a few hours before. That company – whose handset is often hailed as a challenger to the iPhone – has spoken about how it is aiming to go mainstream with its latest handset and take on rivals like Apple.

It will also bring an end to a busy period of launches, all scheduled before the holiday season, that has also included new Amazon Echos, phones from rivals including Samsung and Huawei, as well as Apple's own launch of three updated phones and the brand new Apple Watch Series 4.