Apple 'Spring Loaded' event is official for April 20th – expect new iPads, MacBooks, AirTags and more

The next big Apple Event will be held on April 20th 2021, according to invitations sent out by the company today. Title the 'Spring Loaded' event, it kicks off at 10am PDT/1pm EDT/6pm BST.

This wasn't a massive surprise, because Siri had let it slip earlier in the day, telling people this date when asked when the next Apple Event would be. When we worried about rogue AI, we expected something more sinister, to be honest.

The names and artwork for Apple events often has some meaning to it, though there's not much mystery to what we're looking at here, to be honest. The icon above has a drawn style that Apple often uses in relation to iPads (and Apple Pencil), so this totally ties in with expectations for the iPad Pro 2021 being announced, with a mini-LED screen and big processor boost.

'Spring Loaded' probably just implies that there's lots of new releases to talk about in this spring event – we're expecting new M1-powered MacBook Pros and iMacs, AirTags tracking devices, and possibly even AirPods 3, after all. 

It's possible that the name is a specific reference to some smart new MacBook Pro hinge in a new design or something like that, but we wouldn't exactly take that one down to the betting shop.

Don't forget that there will also be a June 7th Apple Event, as its starts its annual WWDC conference, which always kicks off with a keynote. That's mainly to announce new software – expect iOS 15, watchOS 8, macOS 12 and more – but some hardware is often thrown in too. Maybe that won't be the case with this event coming so close to it, and Apple will focus just on new software and services. Or maybe Apple's 2021 is about to go from quiet to very busy indeed.