Enlarge / The waiting area of the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple's Cupertino campus. (credit: Samuel Axon)

On September 14 at 10 am PDT (1 pm EDT), Apple will host its first product-launch event in several months. Once again, it will be an online-only event . But as with other recent online events from Apple, we expect it to be as jam-packed with announcements as ever.

It's likely to focus on the iPhone, but revelations about the Apple Watch, AirPods, and maybe the iPad are likely, too. We'll be liveblogging the event as it happens on Tuesday, of course, but until then, consider what you're about to read our best attempt at setting expectations and making predictions about what's coming.

In so many ways, Apple has gotten easier to read and predict in recent years—certainly compared to the years during Steve Jobs' second tenure as CEO. Apple has settled into something of a cadence with its main product lines, making it a bit easier to see what may be coming. The company's products are still disruptive, but now they do it in a subtle, iterative ways and often in areas that aren't as flashy as what we saw in the 2000s—like health care, for example.

Enlarge / The 2020 iPad Air—one of several devices supported by today's new software releases. (credit: Samuel Axon )

Today, Apple began rolling out iOS 14.4 and iPadOS 14.4 to supported iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. The company also pushed watchOS 7.3 to Apple Watches and tvOS 14.4 to Apple TVs.

iOS 14.4/iPadOS 14.4 is a somewhat small feature update. New additions in the release notes include the ability to read smaller QR codes with the iPhone cameras, notifications to tell users "when the camera of your iPhone is unable to be verified as a new, genuine Apple camera," and a number of bug fixes.

Here are Apple's full iOS 14.4 release notes:

Enlarge / Apple's App Store. (credit: Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images )

In one of the biggest changes to the App Store model ever, Apple today announced that the majority of third-party developers releasing apps and games on the company's App Store will see a reduction in Apple's cut of revenues from 30% to 15%. The company calls it the App Store Small Business Program, and it aims to improve the company's standing in public perception and antitrust battles while minimally impacting its own bottom line.

The program is opt-in, and any developer whose combined revenue across all their apps was less than $1 million in the previous year (or any developers new to the App Store) can apply and be accepted. The revenue measure at play here includes not just app purchases, but in-app purchase (IAP) and subscriptions revenue.

If during the course of the year the developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the 30% rate will kick back into effect for the remainder of that year. If the developer falls below the threshold again, they'll receive the 15% rate once more the following year.

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  The iPhone 12 Pro.

As previously announced, Apple has begun shipping orders of the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and redesigned iPad Air today. This is the launch day for all three products, and new orders are no longer considered pre-orders on Apple's website. The products are also available in Apple's retail stores today.

Note, though, that today marks the day the first pre-orders are shipping. Shortly after these products went on sale, shipping dates for new online orders began to creep beyond the release date and into November. And at the time of this writing, new orders of the iPhone 12 Pro models are shipping in the United States between November 13 and 20, Apple's website says, and the iPhone 12 is shipping between November 2 and 4. The iPad Air is shipping sometime between November 12 and 18.

Apple has yet to begin shipping the smallest and largest new iPhone models—the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini and the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. Only the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are going out today. The other sizes will be available in November, Apple says, along with the new HomePod mini smart speaker .

Enlarge / The various color options of the iPhone 12. (credit: Apple )

This week, Apple has released a number of software updates to pave the way for tomorrow's iPhone 12 launch. Among them: iOS and iPadOS 14.1, and updates to iMovie and GarageBand for iOS.

iOS 14.1 adds support for the various new iPhone 12-specific features, plus a number of bug fixes. Most of the bug fixes fix UI bugs that shipped with iOS 14 last month. iPadOS 14.1 includes some of the same bug fixes.

Both updates are the second to come since iOS 14, after iOS and iPadOS 14.0.1. The update immediately prior to this one fixed a bug that caused users' default mail and browser apps to reset when a device was turned off or restarted. However, users have since found that their preferences are also being reset when App Store updates occur . iOS 14.1 does not address that issue.

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  iPhone 12 Pro.

Pre-orders began today for three major new Apple products: the iPhone 12 , iPhone 12 Pro , and iPad Air . All these devices are available for order on Apple's website, but none are shipping right away.

The planned ship dates for all of these devices was October 23, but some are already backed up into November. In some cases, it depends on the configuration that you choose. At the time of this writing, some iPhone 12 and iPad Air configurations are shipping later, but others are still listing October 23 as the ship date. On the other hand, every iPhone 12 Pro configuration we looked at promises to ship either later in October or sometime in November.

Additionally, Apple seems to have normalized the cost of the iPhone across all carriers after an initial uproar about the phone being announced at a slightly cheaper price point on AT&T and Verizon.

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  The two sizes of the Spotify widget in iOS 14. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Spotify—one of Apple's main rivals in both the latter's services strategy and in antitrust investigations —has released a new version of its iPhone app that supports home screen widgets, one of the flagship features of iOS 14.

Last month's release of iOS 14 brought home screen widgets—previously only the domain of iPads and Android phones—to iPhones. As we noted in our iOS 14 review , the value of the feature depends entirely on strong adoption and clever uses by third-party app developers.

Releases of widget-supporting apps from developers have been slow. Part of that was because Apple launched iOS 14 with less notice to developers than usual, meaning many were racing to play catch-up. But even now, a month later, the roster of widget-supporting apps has only grown a little bit.