It’s been a slow year for Apple hardware. The company has traditionally done a good job spreading announcements throughout the calendar, but aside from an iPad event in Chicago and a MacBook refresh a few months back, there’s been little news out of the company. Even this summer’s WWDC was utterly devoid of hardware news. All that’s about to change at the big show being held next week at Steve Jobs Theater on the company’s new space-age Cupertino campus.