Apple has announced the date of its big iPhone launch this year with the teaser “It’s Glowtime”.
The event will take place at Apple Park in California on September 9 at 6pm, UK time.
This is when we expect to see the iPhone 16 family of phones announced, alongside plenty of chatter about Apple Intelligence. That’s Apple’s take on AI.
Your first question might well be something else, though: what on Earth is glowtime?
Apple’s iPhone 16 launch event
Our best guess is that glowtime is a reference to the new style of Siri animation, present in the iOS 18 software we’ve known about since June’s WWDC show.
When you activate the next version of Siri, a bright rainbow-like effect takes over the edge of your iPhone screen. And while Siri hasn’t grabbed too many headlines recently, she will still be the face of Apple Intelligence.
Talking to Siri through an iPhone 16 will feel more natural, thanks to LLM (large language model) tech similar to that used in famous chatbots like ChatGPT.
Apple Intelligence will also summarise and transcribe phone conversations, and Siri will be able to connect to OpenAI’s ChatGPT to get more info when necessary.
Not bothered about the AI stuff? We’re likely to see plenty of hardware at the September It’s Glowtime launch.
On the iPhone side, we’ll meet the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. They’re expected to have even bigger screens this year.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is likely to have a massive 6.9-inch display, up from 6.7 inches in the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Changes in the iPhone camera array include a 5x optical zoom for the iPhone 16 Pro, a higher resolution 48-megapixel ultra-wide camera sensor for the Pro models, and a snazzy new camera button. It’s rumoured to be able to emulate the feel of a dedicated camera shutter button, where a half-press focuses without taking a picture.
The Apple Watch family will also get upgrades. Apple’s Watch Series 10 is likely to be a larger version, roughly matching the size of the Apple Watch Ultra.
A fresh Apple Watch SE may lower the price of entry for the series by using colourful plastic casings instead of aluminium. And the top-tier Watch Ultra family will likely get a third model, although it’s expected to look a lot like the one you can buy today.
Apple’s It’s Glowtime event begins at 6pm on September 9, and you’ll be able to watch it live from the Apple Events website.
