Apple (probably) isn't holding an October event after all

What you need to know

There have been Apple event rumors for weeks.
New AirPods, a 16-inch MacBook Pro, Apple Tags, and more were rumored.
If there was going to be one, invititations would have surely arrived by now.

Rumors of an October Apple event have been rife for a number of weeks, especially once the iPhone event came and went with no mention of Apple Tags, new AirPods, or the heavily rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro. But with October almost over it looks like that event isn't going to come.

I'd been wondering about the event and whether Apple still had time to get the invitations out ahead of a late-October press gathering. That had me thinking about other October events and how long or short the gap between invitation and event had been in previous years.

But thankfully John Gruber did the leg work for me. Thanks, John!

Last year Apple held an event in Brooklyn on October 30; invitations to the media were sent on October 18. In 2016, they held an event on October 27 at the Town Hall theater on the old Infinite Loop campus; invitations to that event were sent October 19.We're running out of time for Apple to hold an event in October. Still possible, of course — those 2016 invitations only went out eight days in advance. But I think if it were going to happen, the invitations would've gone out today at the latest.

And I'd agree completely. Apple likes to keep its cards close to its chest but not to the point of making it impossible for press to attend press events. If there was going to be an event in October, we'd know about it by now.

So what about the products that we'd been expecting to put in an appearance? Off the top of my head we have:

New AirPods (Whether Pro or otherwise.)
The 16-inch MacBook Pro that's everwhere right now.
The Apple Tags that we thought would arrive alongside iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro.
Final pricing and configuration details for the Mac Pro. How much will those wheels cost?
New iPad Pros. Not that the 2018 models are in real need of a refresh.

Apple has proven in the past that it's capable of announcing products and product updates via press release. Or, if the mood takes, just by putting them on apple.com and waiting for someone to notice.

Our own Rene Ritchie is of the thought that Apple's press and public relations team is busy enough dealing with the Apple TV+ rollout right now. Adding in some new product announcements might just be unfeesible at this point in time. So could the event just come in November instead?

The potential is there, but as Gruber also points out, none of these products really lend themselves to following one another on-stage. Where's the story that Apple likes to tell? I'm voting press release until Apple tells me otherwise.

But of course, there's every chance you're reading this minutes after an event was announced!

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.