We don’t have much longer to wait for Apple’s Glowtime event on Monday, where the Cupertino-based company is expected to reveal its iPhone 16 lineup along with new AirPods 4 models and three different wearables (the Apple Watch 10, SE 3 and Ultra 3).
The rumor mill has been chugging along steadily, bringing a slew of new leaks and exciting updates over the weekend about what to expect with all four of Apple’s next-gen smartphones. So there’s no time like the present to get up-to-date on the latest iPhone 16 news and rumors.
With everything leaked so far, we have a pretty clear idea about the most exciting new features and upgrades headed for the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. But while key upgrades like the Capture button and larger batteries have been rumored for months at this point, news only recently came to light about Apple’s latest smartphone processor designed with AI in mind, the iPhone 16 Pro line’s new colorway, 4k video shooting at 120 FPS, and more.
Read on for what you may have missed before Apple debuts the iPhone 16, and check out our guide on how to watch Apple’s Glowtime event on Monday, September 9.
Release date
Apple is typically a creature of habit, so while the iPhone 16 doesn’t yet have an official release date, we can make a pretty good educated guess based on the company’s history and recent leaks.
Generally, Apple opens pre-orders for its next-gen iPhones on the Friday after they’re announced, which would be September 13 in this case. A full launch normally takes place one week later, putting a potential iPhone 16 release date on September 20.
However, previous reports claimed the Glowtime event would take place on September 10 before it was confirmed for the day before. In that same vein, at least one rumor claims Apple will accelerate its usual iPhone launch timeline by a single day and open pre-orders on September 12 followed by a September 19 release date.
It’s not unreasonable to think Apple might want to avoid opening pre-orders on Friday the 13th — after all, who wants that bad juju hanging over such a high-profile launch? However, the rumored accelerated timeline comes from a dodgy source that doesn’t explain why Apple might shift its schedule around, so it’s best to take this with a grain of salt for now.
Color options
One of the hardest choices to make when picking up a new phone is what color to pick, and the iPhone 16’s rumored colorways aren’t making that decision any easier.
Previous rumors suggested Apple would introduce a new rose gold shade to the table, but now the consensus is that the iPhone maker has different plans. Last week, a leaked image showed off a new “Desert Titanium” version of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, a kind of bronzey gold to replace the Blue Titanium colorway for the iPhone 15 Pro range. At first glance, it appears more brown than the yellow gold you might expect, though Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has since reported that Desert Titanium “looks impressive and not terrible like the early renders,” so it’s possible we could get something more like the gold colorway last seen with the iPhone 14 Pro line.
As for the standard colorways on Apple’s high-end phones, Natural Titanium, Black Titanium, and White Titanium options will continue to be offered with the iPhone 16 Pro. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are tipped to feature four colors: blue, green, pink, and yellow, the latter replacing the current white option. Rumor has it Apple could drop the black version as well, which would be a pretty big departure.
Camera upgrades
A weekend 9to5Mac report revealed some exciting new camera upgrades headed for the iPhone 16 Pro, including the ability to shoot 4K video at 120 frames per second (FPS). Currently, the iPhone 15 Pro Max maxes out at 60FPS when taking 4K video. Some of the best Android phones let you shoot 4K video at 120 FPS, but this would be a first for Apple if true.
The outlet went on to say it’s seen evidence of Apple testing 8K video filming on the iPhone 16 Pro models, a plausible claim given the phone’s ultrawide lenses are reportedly being bumped to 48MP and the A18 Pro chip seems capable of supporting this resolution. However, the zoom lens would still be capped at 4K, and it remains uncertain whether Apple will enable 8K recording on production devices.
Rumor has it the iPhone 16 Pro could adopt a tetraprism telephoto lens complete with 5x zoom capabilities. Both the telephoto and main lens might also get a higher quality lens as well, which would translate to a larger camera module on the iPhone 16 Pro.
Other new upgrades include the option to pause and resume video recordings in the camera app, the removal of wind noise from videos, new Photographic Styles with enhanced machine learning to preserve skin tones, Vision Pro compatible 3D Spatial Photos and support for the JPEG-XL format. The standard iPhone 16 could share some of these more software-focused upgrades as well, though that’s yet to be confirmed.
Speaking of the standard iPhone 16, we expect it to inherit the same camera setup as its predecessor: a 48MP main camera and 12MP ultrawide camera on the back along with a 12MP selfie lens.
New processor designed with AI in mind
A new leak courtesy of the Financial Times claims Apple plans to use SoftBank-owned Arm’s newest V9 chip design for the iPhone 16’s processor. That should help Apple Intelligence, whenever it gets a full release, to run smoothly even on a device small enough to fit in your pocket.
For its next-gen smartphones, Apple is debuting a new A18 processor on Monday that leverages the more powerful V9 to run on-device AI models faster and more power-efficiently. Apple adopted this same architecture for its M4 MacBook chips as part of a larger push to bring generative AI features to its devices.
While welcome, the news comes as little surprise. Arm’s architecture is used in nearly every smartphone chip on the market, and it penned a multi-year deal with Apple last September. Its last-gen V8 chip architecture can be found in Apple’s A17 Pro chip for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max.
