iPhone 16: Apple announces iPhone Glowtime launch event in September

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.

But your first question might well be something else: but what is glowtime?

Apple iPhone 16 Launched

Our best guess is that Glowtime is a reference to the new Siri animation style, present in the iOS 18 software that we’ve known about since June’s WWDC show.

When you activate the new version of Siri, a bright rainbow effect fills the edge of your iPhone’s screen. And while Siri hasn’t been much of a buzz lately, she’ll still be the face of Apple Intelligence.

Talking to Siri via an iPhone 16 will be more natural, thanks to LLM (large language model) technology similar to that used in famous chatbots like ChatGPT.

Apple Intelligence will also summarize and transcribe phone conversations, and Siri will be able to connect to OpenAI’s ChatGPT to get more information if needed.

Not interested in artificial intelligence? We’ll probably see a lot of hardware when It’s Glowtime launches in September.

On the iPhone side, we will find the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. They should have even larger screens this year.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is expected to have a massive 6.9-inch display, compared to 6.7 inches for the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Changes to the iPhone’s camera lineup 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 sleek new camera button. Rumors suggest it could mimic the feel of a dedicated camera shutter button, where a half-press focuses without taking a photo.

The Apple Watch family will also get some upgrades. The Apple Watch Series 10 will likely be a larger version, roughly matching the size of the Apple Watch Ultra.

A new Apple Watch SE could lower the series’ entry-level price by using colorful plastic cases instead of aluminum. And the high-end Watch Ultra family will likely get a third model, though it should look a lot like the one you can buy today.

Apple’s It’s Glowtime event starts at 6pm on September 9, and you can watch it live from the Apple Events website.