Apple’s Annual iPhone Launch Event is Set for September 9: ‘It’s Glowtime’
Apple will host an event on September 9 which will likely see the announcement of its next round of mobile solutions including what will likely be the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max smartphones.
As is typical with Apple’s announcements, no details other than the cryptic “It’s Glowtime” title were present in the invite that was sent to select members of the media. That said, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman has a particularly good record when it comes to what goes on at Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters and he says the company isn’t expected to deviate too far from the norm: it will likely announce an iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max as it has in recent years. Additionally, Gurman doesn’t expect them to look notably different than they have in the last few years.
Earlier this year, Apple announced a large set of software enhancements coming to its devices under the name Apple Intelligence, and Gurman expects these to be the big marketing push behind Apple’s new handhelds. These will come built to support Apple’s new AI push, but the features won’t all necessarily be exclusive to the 16 series of devices, as Apple Intelligence is expected to come to the 15 Pro versions, too.
Samsung and Google both leaned very hard into artificial intelligence features in their 2024 devices and that left PetaPixel’s Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake feeling like there wasn’t a huge reason to upgrade over last year’s models from a hardware perspective. Samsung’s approach was especially AI-heavy, with little on the hardware side that felt worthwhile. Worse, the AI features weren’t very good — at least not on the photo-capture end.
Google’s Pixel 9 Pro, which was announced just a couple of weeks ago, was a bit more convincing with its argument for AI and the hardware did have some improvements and changes versus the Pixel 8 series from 2023, but again they were minor and the real emphasis was on software enhancements. For many, that wasn’t enough of a reason to upgrade.
If Apple goes as heavily into AI features as Samsung and Google did, it will be interesting to see if it can better make the argument for an upgrade.
On a related note, Gurman says that non-Pro versions of Apple’s new smartphone will feature the Action button found on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max from last year and that there will be a dedicated camera button on the iPhone 16 Pro versions which will operate similarly to how standalone cameras work, with a half press to focus and a full press to take a photo.
What exactly the “glowtime” line means isn’t clear but whatever Apple has in store, expect to see it on September 9 at 10 AM Pacific Time at Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park.
Image credits: Apple
