Apple iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus: What We Know So Far

Apple will unveil the iPhone 16 series next week at an event dubbed “It’s Glowtime.” Here’s what we think we know about the new models – here we’ll focus on the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, the two Pros will be covered in a separate article.

Releasing

Apple has officially confirmed that the iPhone 16 series will be unveiled on September 9 (Monday). The event will start at 17:00 UTC.

The bigger question is when the phones will be available — according to Mark Gurman, all four iPhone 16 models are on track to go on sale soon (right after the event) and launch on September 20.

Apple Intelligence is reportedly delayed and will not be available on launch day. Instead, it should arrive as an update in October. However, the delay will not affect the iPhone 16 launch.

Design

There hasn’t been a significant evolution in the design of the regular iPhone since the iPhone 11, unless you count the arrival of Dynamic Island as “significant.” The overall look of the 16 series will remain the same, but mannequins have been photographed showing off some changes.

The rectangular camera island will be flattened horizontally, aligning the two cameras vertically. This will also move the LED flash from the island to the back.

Apple iPhone 16 Mannequins

The mannequins also reveal (all?) the starting colors. They should be more saturated than the Pro models, which traditionally only get the lightest shades.

Action and capture buttons

The side views of the mannequins show the tentatively named Action and Capture buttons, which will trigger custom actions and act as a camera shutter button. However, this means that the Alert Slider will be removed.

All four iPhone 16 models will have an action button

And the capture button

The Capture button looks like it will be more of a capacitive touchpad than a physical button, allowing for swipe gestures – it could be used to control zoom, for example.

It displays the same (-ish)

The iPhone 16 will have a 6.1-inch display, while the iPhone 16 Plus will have a larger display at 6.7″, just like last year. However, both will be smaller than the corresponding Pro variants, which will be 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch. The bezels will be thinner, so we can expect slightly smaller dimensions on the vanilla and Plus models (the Pros will grow by a few millimeters).

The displays will remain the same, except for slightly thinner bezels

All four models will make use of Dynamic Island’s wide aperture in the display, and it’s unlikely to change for the standard models next year (pro models could start moving hardware components under the screen).

And no, there will be no ProMotion; the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus displays will run at 60Hz like they did in the Dark Ages. That could change for the 2025 pair, if you can hold out that long.

Apple A18 Chipsets and AI for Everyone

We’ve already mentioned that Apple Intelligence will be delayed – but most importantly, it will finally arrive on the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus. The 15 and 15 Plus miss out due to older chipsets (A16) and limited RAM (6GB).

That won’t be the case with the 16 series, though. Apple, like every other tech company, sees AI as the next big thing. That means the new phones will have NPUs fast enough for fast on-device processing and enough RAM to house relatively large AI models.

That doesn’t mean Apple will go crazy with RAM capacity, at least not yet. This year’s vanilla and Plus models are expected to get 8GB of RAM, with successors next year possibly getting 12GB (or not). Google has increased RAM capacity in the Pixel 9 series, but has reserved some of it so that the AI ​​model can always stay loaded in memory—ready to react at a moment’s notice. Whether Apple will do the same remains to be seen.

Non-Pro phones may have fewer GPU cores, but that shouldn’t impact AI performance. And with 60Hz displays, the extra GPU power isn’t needed at all.

Same(-ish) cameras

As we’ve already seen, the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will have dual cameras – no surprises there. Rumors suggest that both phones will use the exact same 48MP main camera as their 15-series predecessors. The jump from 12MP in the 14-series and earlier models was quite a big one, and we can’t expect this kind of improvement every year.

As for the ultra-wide camera, it will be mostly the same, save for an improved lens – it will have a brighter f/2.2 aperture (up from f/2.4) for better low-light performance. What’s more, it will have autofocus, allowing it to take macro shots.

We’ve heard rumors of other changes, like JPEG XL support in the camera app (as an alternative to HEIC), and we’ve already covered the Capture button above.

What happens next?

A quick look at what analysts are predicting for 2025. This could be the end of the road for the big Plus series, which will supposedly give way to the iPhone 17 Slim. This one will have a slightly smaller 6.6-inch display, according to analyst Jeff Pu, further differentiating it from the Pro Max (6.9-inch) model.

Both the iPhone 17 and 17 Slim will retain the Dynamic Island, but will feature an improved 24MP selfie camera. The Pros should have a smaller Island, so there will be a noticeable difference between the vanilla and Pro versions. At the very least, the vanilla pair should finally get high-refresh-rate displays.

Either way, there are a lot of rumors floating around right now about the iPhone 17 generation, and their plausibility is pretty questionable. For example, we’ve heard that the iPhone 17 Slim will only have a single rear camera, but will be more expensive than the 17 Pro Max. One or both of those pieces of information may not be true. Still, we thought it was important to mention these things as context for what the iPhone 16 series will represent in terms of improvements.

You could also consider the iPhone SE 4, which would complete Apple’s move to OLED. The new SE is likely to arrive in Q1 2025.