The tech giant is primed to announce its newest iPhone on September 9, and industry insiders are dropping clues about the upgrade.
Apple Intelligence — the company’s entrance into the artificial-intelligence arms race — will likely be the centerpiece of the launch versus any planned hardware changes.
Apple is reportedly already training retail store employees on the AI features in preparation for the launch. Meanwhile, marketing exec Greg Joswiak is teasing the “Glowtime” event from his X account.
The event will be held in the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park and streamed online.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee posted their invitations to the in-person event on X. Like Joswiak’s post, their invites had a glowing Apple symbol that Gurman pointed out as a potential nod to the newly designed virtual assistant Siri.
Bloomberg has reported that Apple Intelligence would be free at first, but that subscription options might become available for those who want more AI capabilities on their device. Smartphone owners will have to upgrade to the iPhone 15 Pro or later if they want to use Apple Intelligence.
One of the other adjustments will be to Siri, which should become even smarter with iOS 18 thanks to Apple Intelligence and the company’s OpenAI partnership, Apple said at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
As for wearable tech, new models of AirPods and the Apple Watch are also coming, according to Bloomberg.
The upcoming Apple Watch Series 10 devices will have larger screens, but they’ll reportedly be slimmed down. Midlevel AirPods could also get noise cancellation with updates to the low-end AirPods, too.
iPhone 16 models are expected to have the “action” button that was previously included only on the iPhone 15 Pro models, Bloomberg said. The iPhone 16 Pro models are also said to have a camera-control button that performs similarly to the button on a DSLR camera, allowing you to partially press it to focus your shot, the news outlet added.
Consumers should expect to see a refreshed color lineup and the return of an old favorite: rose gold, the publication reported. Pro models will likely have bigger screens, but all the new phones will have the new A18 chip and the minimum 8 GB of memory required to run Apple Intelligence, it added.
Ming-Chi Kuo, a Taiwan-based analyst known for his Apple predictions, said in May that the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s battery would differ from those in previous models.
In a blog post, Kuo said that the energy density of the battery cells would increase in the device, which suggests that it would either have a longer battery life or the battery itself could be smaller.
Such changes would likely raise the battery temperature, Kuo said, but Apple might combat this with a stainless-steel battery case — which would be a first for the company.
Tweaks to the battery would also help Apple comply with European Union regulations that require all smartphones to have replaceable batteries by 2027 since it would be easier to remove.
A stainless-steel case would allow “Apple to increase the battery cell density by 5-10% while meeting safety requirements, achieving two goals at once,” Kuo said in an X post.
