Looking for a new iPhone in 2021? Apple’s iPhone 13 will likely debut in September this year.
With Apple’s new iPhone 13 series release date heavily tipped to be in September, we’ve got less than a month until launch – and we’ve been hard at work rounding up and cutting through the key iPhone leaks. New iPhone rumors have been springing up from a variety of sources for the last few months, and we’ve now got a clear picture of some specs of the iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 13 mini. From our digging, we’re confident we’ve got a pretty clear picture of the new iPhone 13 models, and we’ve cut down the rumors into a handy, bite-size portion below… as well as tonnes more depth where we explain everything you have to know about the new iPhone range. iPhone 13 release date: September 2021 is likely when we’ll hear about the iPhone 13, but an exact launch or release date hasn’t yet become clear. Our best guess is you’ll hear about the new iPhone on September 14,2021. iPhone 13 price: Expect a similar price to the iPhone 12 range, with one leak suggesting it’ll be exactly the same. The iPhone 12 mini – the cheapest of 2020’s iPhones – started at $699 / £699 / AU$1,199 while the iPhone 12 Pro Max cost $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,849. Design: Little is expected to change from the iPhone 12, but it seems the company will be changing the design of the rear camera. It’ll seemingly have a diagonal lens arrangement on the two cheaper phones, but it’s largely set to be similar to last year’s handsets. Colors: Apple may debut some new shades with the iPhone 13 series, and two rumored versions are pink and orange. Alongside those, we expect to see similar shades to last-gen, such as purple, black and white. Display: Screen sizes and resolutions are expected to stay the same across the range of iPhone 13 products, but both the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max are heavily rumored to debut 120Hz refresh rates. That means the image on these screens will be smoother than previous iPhones. Plus we’re expecting an always-on display on each handset, too. Camera: Apple is expected to be tweaking the camera on the iPhone 13 series, and the two Pro handsets may get an upgraded ultra-wide shooter. The iPhone 13 Pro may also get an upgraded telephoto camera, plus some leaks suggest LiDAR could be present on all four models so you’ll have improved depth perception. Video recording software improvements are also expected, including a new Portrait mode. Specs: The A15 chipset will likely power each of these handsets, but we’ve yet to know how powerful that will be. It’s also heavily rumored that Apple may bring out a 1TB iPhone for the first time in 2021 so that’ll allow for the largest iPhone sizes ever. Battery: If the biggest iPhone 13 battery leak is correct, you can expect a larger battery inside 2021’s phones. These are expected to be notably larger, with the iPhone 13 expected to offer a 3,095mAh cell compared to the iPhone 12’s 2,805mAh. What will that mean? Expect a longer lasting iPhone 13 than your previous iPhones. Want the full picture of the iPhone 13 leaks so far? You’ll find it below, where we run you through every spec and detail of the next iPhone series. We’ve been covering Apple handsets since the very first iPhone was revealed by Steve Jobs in 2007, so we’re confident we’ve only brought you the most likely and coherent new iPhone new based on our analysis of dates, source validity and, well, just what makes the most sense to us. The iPhone 13 release date is likely to be in September 2021, and we expect it to hit stores on either the third or fourth Friday of the month (which makes it September 17 or 24). Before 2020, Apple has often announced its new iPhones on either the first or second Tuesday of September. If that happens again in 2021, we’d expect the iPhone 13 range to be revealed on September 7 or September 14 and release 10 days later. Multiple analysts have said to expect an announcement in the third week of September this year, which means that September 14 is the most likely date, with September 15 also being possible, as the brand occasionally announces phones on a Wednesday. Based on Apple’s usual approach we’d then expect pre-orders to open on September 17, with the release date being September 24 (the following Friday). That’s in line with a date posted by a retailer. They list the iPhone 13 range for September 17, though it’s not clear from the listing whether that’s a pre-order date or an on sale date, and it’s possible this is just a placeholder date anyway. There’s no guarantee this will be the iPhone 13 release date though, and that’s mostly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro were pushed back to October in 2020, and the other two devices – the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max – were released in November of that year. Plus, apparently the 2020 delay resulted in increased sales for the phones. That may mean Apple decides to keep to this new window, but there’s no real indication of that from leaks. Apple is heavily rumored to be hosting another virtual event in 2021, rather than a physical launch for the iPhone 13. That likely doesn’t mean much of a change for you, but it does suggest it’ll take a bit longer for press (like TechRadar) to be able to touch the phones and give you our first impressions. The only big price leak about the iPhone 13 range suggests that the upcoming models will cost a similar amount to the iPhone 12 range. The same source has now said this twice, and that’s in line with what we had expected. We’ll be sure to include more 2021 iPhone price leaks and rumors as we hear them, but below you can see the prices for the iPhone 12 series that we’re relatively confident will be similar on the iPhone 13. If anything, prices might rise slightly this year though. That’s especially true outside the US, as there are rumors that much of the world will get the mmWave 5G tech that US iPhone 12s already support, pushing the price up in the process. On top of that, we’ve also heard that one of Apple’s component suppliers is putting up its prices, which could push Apple to follow suit. But we wouldn’t expect a big change. The iPhone 13 family is largely expected to look similar to the iPhone 12 series, but there are a few key differences that we’ve heard time and time again in leaks and rumors. In the gallery below, you can see our own renders based on the leaks you can read about below. We’ve taken the information we’ve heard from a whole host of different sources and created our own artist’s impression of what we expect to see. These may not be entirely accurate when the phone debuts later this year, but this is our best picture yet of the handset considering the leaks we’ve heard about in July 2021 and earlier. One of the biggest design leaks so far includes CAD files that show a smaller notch, plus a diagonal camera layout for the iPhone 13. They appear to show a slightly thicker build too, likely to accommodate the larger batteries that have been rumored. The notch looks very likely to change with this generation of Apple handsets. Far more sources are pointing to it shrinking than staying the same size, so a smaller notch seems likely, with one source adding that the Face ID sensor has apparently also been shrunk, which would allow for a smaller notch. We’ve now also seen a couple of leaked photos reportedly showing the screen glass for the iPhone 13 range, and there’s a visibly smaller notch, achieved by moving the earpiece to the bezel above. Similarly, a 3D-printed iPhone 13 mock-up also shows a smaller notch. Specifically the notch here is 26.8mm wide (compared to 34.83mm on the iPhone 12), but it’s also 5.35mm deep, making it stick out a tiny bit more than the 5.3mm one on the iPhone 12. The mock-up also shows that the contents of the notch may have been moved around a bit, with the selfie camera shown on the left rather than the right, and the earpiece moved into the bezel. Elsewhere, reports put the notch at either 26.63mm or 25.57mm wide. Our render includes a notch which is 30% slimmer than the iPhone 12’s, and that seems to be the consensus from most leaks of the iPhone 13. So what about the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max? An iPhone 13 Pro Max dummy unit – created based on leaked schematics and other leaks – also shows a smaller notch, as well as larger camera lenses. However, the design and even the size is otherwise more or less the same as the iPhone 12 Pro Max. We’ve also seen a very similar design in unofficial iPhone 13 Pro renders, supposedly based on a ‘finalized version’ of the handset. These include a larger, flatter camera bump than on the iPhone 12 Pro, plus larger camera sensors, a smaller notch, and an apparently less fingerprint-prone stainless steel frame.
