Next week Apple will introduce the iPhone 16 series during an event dubbed “It’s Glowtime”. Here is what we think we know about the new models – here we will focus on the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, the two Pros will be covered in a separate article.
The launch
Apple has officially confirmed that the iPhone 16 series will be unveiled on September 9 (Monday). The event will start at 5 PM UTC.
The more important question is when the phones will be available – according to Mark Gurman, all four iPhone 16 models are on track for a speedy pre-order (right after the event) and a September 20 launch.
Apple Intelligence is reportedly delayed and won’t be available on launch day. Instead, it should arrive as an update in October. However, this delay will not affect the iPhone 16 launch.
The design
There hasn’t been a significant evolution in vanilla iPhone design since the iPhone 11, unless you count the arrival of the Dynamic Island as “significant”. The overall look for the 16-series will remain the same, but dummies have been photographed showing some tweaks.
The rectangular camera island will be squished horizontally, aligning the two cameras vertically. This also moves the LED flash off the island and onto the back.
Apple iPhone 16 dummies
The dummies also reveal (all?) launch colors. These should be more saturated than the Pro models, which traditionally only get the lightest of hues.
Action and Capture buttons
Side views of dummies show the tentatively named Action and Capture buttons, which will trigger custom actions and will act as a camera shutter key, respectively. This does mean that the Alert Slider will be removed, however.
All four iPhone 16 models will have an Action button
And a capture button
Apparently, the Capture button will be more of a capacitive trackpad than a physical button, allowing swiping gestures – this could be used to control zoom, for example.
Same(-ish) displays
The iPhone 16 will have a 6.1” display, the iPhone 16 Plus display will be larger at 6.7”, just as last year. However, both of these will be smaller than the respective Pro variants, which will have 6.3” and 6.9” diagonals. The bezels will be thinner, so we can expect slightly smaller dimensions on the vanilla and Plus models (the Pros will grow by a few millimeters).
The displays will be the same, save for slightly slimmer bezels
All four models will use the wide Dynamic Island hole in the display and that is unlikely to change for the vanilla models next year (the Pros could start moving hardware below the screen).
And, no, there will be no ProMotion, both iPhone 16 and 16 Plus displays will run at 60Hz like in the dark ages. Now that is something that might change for the 2025 vanilla pair, if you can hold out that long.
Apple A18 chipsets and AI for all
We already mentioned that Apple Intelligence will be delayed – but, crucially, it will eventually arrive on the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus. The 15 and 15 Plus are missing out because of their older chipsets (A16) and limited RAM capacities (6GB).
That won’t be the case for the 16-series, however. Apple, like every other tech company right now, sees AI as the next big thing. This means that the new phones will have an NPU fast enough for quick on-device processing and enough RAM to hold the relatively large AI models.
That isn’t to say that Apple will go wild with RAM capacities, at least not yet. This year the vanilla and Plus models are expected to get 8GB of RAM, next year’s successors could go up to 12GB (or not). Google increased the RAM capacity on the Pixel 9 series, but reserved part of it so that the AI model can always stay loaded in memory – ready to respond at a moment’s notice. Whether Apple does the same remains to be seen.
The non-Pro phones might get fewer GPU cores, but that shouldn’t affect AI performance. And with their 60Hz displays, extra GPU power isn’t needed anyway.
Same(-ish) cameras
As we already saw, the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will have two cameras – no surprises here. Rumors suggest that the two phones will use the exact same 48MP main camera as on their 15-series predecessors. The jump from 12MP on 14-series and older models was quite big and we can’t expect a similar improvement every year.
As for the ultra wide camera, it will be mostly the same except for an upgraded lens – it will have a brighter f/2.2 aperture (compared to f/2.4) for improved low-light performance. Even better, it will have autofocus, allowing it to shoot macro photos.
We’ve heard rumors of other changes, e.g. JPEG XL support in the camera app (as an alternative to HEIC). And we already covered the Capture button above.
What comes next
Just a brief overview of what analysts predict will happen in 2025. This might be the end of the road for the large Plus series, which will allegedly give way to the iPhone 17 Slim. This one will have a slightly smaller 6.6” display, according to analyst Jeff Pu, which will further separate it from the Pro Max model (6.9”).
Both the iPhone 17 and 17 Slim will retain the Dynamic Island, but will feature an upgraded 24MP selfie camera. The Pros should have a smaller Island, so there will be a noticeable difference between vanilla and Pro. At least the vanilla pair should finally get high refresh rate screens.
Anyway, there are a lot of rumors about the iPhone 17 generation flying around right now and their plausibility is fairly dubious. For example, we’ve heard that the iPhone 17 Slim will have only one rear camera but will be more expensive than the 17 Pro Max. One or both of these might not be true. Still, we thought that it was important to mention these things as context for what the iPhone 16 series will represent in terms of upgrades.
There is also the iPhone SE 4 to consider, which will complete Apple’s transition to OLED. The new SE will likely arrive in Q1 2025.