iPhone 16 to be Minor Update, Gurman Says

We’re about a month out from Apple’s iPhone 16 series launch, and everyone is a little too caught up in the Apple Intelligence drama for some reason: The company made it clear in June that its AI features wouldn’t ship in the initial release of iOS 18 alongside the new iPhones, and its slow-boil rollout feels more mature and steady than the AI chaos coming out of Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google these days. But the ever-reliable Mark Gurman now says that the iPhone 16 family won’t be the major overhaul some had hoped for. That will wait until 2027, apparently.

According to Gurman, last year’s iPhone 15 Pro was basically the same phone as its predecessor but wrapped in a new Titanium shell, while the non-Pro iPhone 15s added the surprisingly useful and innovative Dynamic Island. That’s a bit reductive, but it’s fair to say that the basic iPhone design hasn’t changed dramatically since the iPhone 12 series in 2020.

And it won’t change in 2024 either: Gurman says that the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max will closely mirror their predecessors, with just minor design tweaks. The Pro models will get slightly bigger screens–6.3 inches vs. 6.1 inches, and 6.9 inches vs. 6.7 inches–while the non-Pro models will get the Action button. Some or all of these iPhones will also get a new button for camera functions, though it’s interesting he doesn’t know its name or exactly which models will get it. (This is Apple, so my money is it’s Pro-only this first year.)

There will be color refreshes, as always, with a rose gold color replacing last year’s blue in the Pros. An Apple Silicon A18 chip, of course. And 8 GB of RAM across the board, a major improvement over last year, to accommodate the memory needs of Apple Intelligence. Which, oddly, will be the big selling point for this lineup despite those features not being available at launch. This, Gurman says, explains why Apple didn’t raise its financial guidance for the quarter: Apple doesn’t expect a meaningful bump in iPhone sales over last year.

Gurman says that Apple will finally upgrade its entry-level iPhone SE in early 2025, too, with an iPhone 14-like (all-screen) design, OLED display, and Apple Intelligence. No word on pricing, but he believes a $500 iPhone SE could be a big seller. Given the current version starts at $429, I’m not sure about that.

But the bigger changes are coming in late 2025 with the iPhone 17 series. This lineup will include “a new type of smartphone,” what Gurman calls “the fourth iPhone model.” With the Mini and now Plus iPhone models not selling as well as Apple has hoped, it will apparently release an iPhone 17 “Air” alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. This will be a thinner new model that is cooler than the other iPhones while not necessarily exceeding the performance or camera capabilities of the Pro models. Similar to how the MacBook Air stacks up against the MacBook Pro.

Over time, Apple plans to shift its Pro models to this thinner new form factor without any functional compromises, an effort that could take several years, with 2027 as the earliest possible time. Gurman also claims that while Apple is working on a foldable iPhone too, a foldable iPad is as much of a priority inside the company.

But that’s for the future. This year, we get more of the same.

Gurman offered up other tidbits for Apple fans. An Apple TV-sized redesign we reported on last week, in both M4 Pro and regular M4 configurations in October. New MacBook Pros and iMacs based on the M4 as early as this fall. New MacBook Airs based on the M4 in early 2025. And, more vaguely, a new Mac Studio, Mac Pro, and bigger iMac. He also says that the rumored plastic Apple Watch SE–which I think is a terrific idea–is happening and aimed at dramatically lowering the cost of the device and making it more appealing to kids, with fun colors.