New iPhone: Why the latest handset will be the least interesting thing about next Apple event

Much of the rest of Apple's line-up is waiting for a freshen up

Apple is about to unveil the new iPhone. But you might be better to look elsewhere.

While Apple's September event is always, inevitably, about the iPhone, the company will also spend some time unveiling a whole host of other products besides. And then it might do it all over again, next month.

Many of those products might not be quite so exciting or as broad in their appeal as the phone. But they might be far more important to the future of Apple.

They will include expected updates to just about every single Apple product. And many of those updates could signal the future of Apple's products in ways that the iPhone – interesting though it will be – might not.

This year's iPhone release, complicated though it is with three phones of various sizes and prices, is definitively an "s" year. The outside design won't change, and Apple is expected have spent its energy instead on refining and improving the ways the phone works, rather than introducing radical new designs or technologies.

That will probably be even more true this year, since the iPhone X marked such a major change for Apple and its users. There will no doubt be new features – potentially new display technologies, the ability to use an Apple Pencil, and a range of internal upgrades that are yet to be leaked – but for the most part those will be refinements rather than reimaginings.

None of that means that the iPhone will not be worth buying: some prefer the "s" year because it gives people the chance to buy a phone that has been refined and fixed, rather than venturing into brand new technology. But it does mean it might not be the best way of telling what Apple is up to.

Instead, look to the other products that Apple chooses to introduce.

Chief among them will be the Apple Watch Series 4, which will introduce a vast redesign, with a screen that is expected to sweep all the way over the front of the wearable as well as new features on the inside. It will be the first time that Apple has redesigned the outside of the Apple Watch since the original one, and a clue at what Apple now thinks the computer-on-your-wrist is best at.

Apple might also bring upgrades to its AirPods, the wireless earphones. Widely heralded as one of Apple's biggest successes of recent years, new updates could offer even more innovations.

And it could finally offer its AirPower charging mat. (If it doesn't, it will be a major cause for concern, given it was introduced as coming soon exactly a year ago.) Apple has been clear that it is interested in everything becoming wireless, and another charging product will be yet another statement in that direction.

Perhaps most interesting will be alterations to Apple's Mac line, which could be released either at this event or potentially at another next month. It is not clear what is happening with the company's computers – the MacBook Air, for instance, continues to sell well but is very much lacking an update – and this could be the time that Apple opts to clear up that often confusing product line-up.

And besides all of those new products will come new software, too, with updates to all of the products Apple makes. That includes a change of direction for iOS, which does bring new features but also focuses on improving the performance of the software on older phones, which could come as a delight to those struggling with older phones and won't require them to spend any money at all.