Updated August 6 with more reports that double down on the release date, and one caveat.
Exactly when will the iPhone 16 series be revealed, launch pre-orders and go on sale? You can read my full details of all these steps here, and there are now multiple reports, including from an industry heavyweight, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, which helpfully set out what they think Apple’s thinking is, and when the phones will be announced. From this, we can deduce exactly when the onsale date will be.
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus: when will Apple unleash the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro?
There’s one wild card to throw into all this, though: Apple does like to ensure it’s not predictable, so a change of a day or even a week is not impossible, even now. What seems sure is that Apple will confirm the keynote date in less than a month, likely on Wednesday, September 4 or Thursday, September 5.
One other thing: a cast-iron certainty is that the keynote won’t be on the Wednesday after that, as that’s September 11, a day that Apple has conspicuously avoided ever since the terrorist attack in 2001.
Predictions are coming thick and fast now, with Tech Radar among the latest. James Rogerson lights on the same time and date for the keynote as I did, and others are doing: Tuesday, September 10 at 10 a.m. Pacific. It cites the reports which say that production seems to be on schedule, “so there aren’t many reasons to think there might be a delay.” It mentions that it won’t be delayed by the lateness of Apple Intelligence—the highly unusual strategy suggested by Gurman and discussed below.
Additionally, 9to5Mac has its own theories and it also suggests the same date. It points out that some years, Apple reveals its phones on a Wednesday, but is clear what the reasoning for this is: “Apple favors Tuesdays and Wednesdays as iPhone event days. Tuesdays are preferred, but it pushes the event to Wednesday when it happens the same week as Labor Day. Essentially, the company wants a full business day to happen in a new week before the iPhone event.”
I think that’s right. So, what’s the need for the extra business day? Usually it’s so American journalists can travel to the event, and Apple might not be popular if it encroached on a long weekend.
No sooner had Gurman intervened but another source suggested the exact same date for the reveal of Tuesday, September 10. As reported by Tom’s Guide, there’s been another report of the announcement from Apple being made on the same day.
This is important because the unveil date kickstarts the entire process, guiding us towards the day pre-orders are likely to open—probably Friday, September 13—and from there the onsale date, almost certainly the following Friday, that is, September 20. The new report also says that the next iPhone 16 Pro Max will be sold for the same price as the current iPhone 15 Pro Max, that is, from $1,199.
The new leak, from CNMO News, doesn’t have the reliability of Mark Gurman, so if it pointed to a different date, I’d be skeptical, but the fact that it suggests the same date is encouraging.
So, the date is starting to look solid, but, as mentioned above, Mark Gurman has introduced a new idea as to Apple’s strategy.
Apple has made clear that Apple Intelligence will be a big selling point for the next iPhone series. Trouble is, it looks like it won’t be ready for Apple’s preferred September release date. So, what is Apple going to do? Push back the release so the marquee feature will launch with the iPhone 16 series? Not according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter.
Instead, Gurman says, Apple has taken a radically different approach this time around, compared to 2011, when it was about to launch the iPhone 4s. “The rationale: iCloud and Siri—a pair of new online services—wouldn’t be ready until the fall. Other than those enhancements, the iPhone 4S wouldn’t have a lot of fresh features. So rather than launch the iPhone 4S in June and give people Siri and iCloud via software upgrades a few months later, it decided to hold off and launch everything together at the end of the year,” Gurman says.
Since then, September has been Apple’s favorite for iPhone launches. But this year, it has a similar problem as Apple Intelligence “won’t be ready until October.” But, it’s not going to delay the release of the phones. “Apple is taking a different tack and won’t hold back the new hardware until the services are ready,” says Gurman.
So, when does that leave the release? My guess was that the announcement would take place on Tuesday, September 10, with onsale date of Friday, September 20.
Gurman says, “I’m told that the iPhone launch will occur around the same time as last year — a quick look at the calendar makes Sept. 10 a probable date — and users will need to upgrade their new hardware to iOS 18.1 in October to get rolling with Apple Intelligence.”
Gurman is slightly cautious in his prediction: I’ll go further, I’m sure that Tuesday, September 10 is the day of the reveal. Things could still change, but I’d take a bet on this.