A roundup of all the rumors and leaks so far, before next week’s official announcement. Next week Apple will introduce the iPhone 16 series during an event.
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.
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.
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.
