Carrier Leak Predicts iPhone 17 Launch Date

Although it doesn’t take a great deal of clairvoyance to broadly predict when Apple will hold its annual iPhone event each year, nailing down the exact date can still be tricky — and Apple has occasionally thrown us a curveball.

Apple tends to play its cards close to the vest, even when it comes to major release events. While we can bank on nearly 15 years of Apple event history to know that it’s extremely likely to land in the first two weeks of September, the specific date is often shrouded in mystery until Apple sends out press invites a week or two ahead. This presumably gives Apple some wiggle-room to reschedule if things don’t work out as planned.

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That doesn’t mean we don’t get some hints from other sources, and this year they’re all pointing to Tuesday, September 9, 2025, as the big day for the iPhone 17 unveiling.

The first inkling of this came from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who said in his Power On newsletter last month that we could “pencil in the keynote for the week of Sept. 8.” He didn’t get any more specific, but suspected that September 9 or 10 were the most likely candidates, due to Apple’s tendency to favor Tuesdays and Wednesdays for its big media events.

Now, a leaked internal document from at least one German mobile phone carrier is putting its chips on the Tuesday of that week, according to iphone-ticker.de.

The report doesn’t go into the details on what the internal information says, but it implies that it points to the date of the Apple release event, not necessarily the date the iPhone 17 lineup will go on sale. That’s a bit unusual, as carriers typically care more about the latter, but the Apple event is still relevant as it’s the first day that carriers are allowed to start talking about the new models and start advertising pre-order availability.

If Apple follows its usual pattern, pre-orders for the new iPhones would start on Friday, September 12, and the new models would appear in stores (and arrive in customers’ hands) the following Friday, September 19. Those dates would likely hold even if Apple’s launch event were held on Monday or Wednesday of that week.

Apple’s Past iPhone Events

Until last year, when Apple surprised us with its first-ever Monday iPhone event, we would have said that the safe money was on September 9 anyway.

Before that, 11 of the 13 fall iPhone events going back to 2011 have been held during the first two weeks of September, and eight of those have been held on a Tuesday. The other five were held on a Wednesday, but for specific reasons: in 2012 and 2018, September 11 fell on the second Tuesday; in 2015, 2016, and 2022, Apple held its event the first week in September, and didn’t want to schedule it for the day after the Labor Day weekend.

The only two iPhone events that haven’t been held during the first two weeks in September landed in early October. The first iPhone event held by Apple in the fall was on October 4, 2011; the three prior iPhone models had been unveiled during Apple’s June Worldwide Developers Conference. The other one was the iPhone 12 event in 2020, which was delayed due to challenges Apple faced with the global health pandemic.

Apple’s decision to hold its iPhone 16 event on a Monday last year was very unusual, but it’s probably not a coincidence that it also happened to be the 10th anniversary of the day the company announced the first Apple Watch. Apple didn’t make much of the date, but it certainly got the pundits buzzing in the belief that there would be a major “Apple Watch X” type of announcement.

Apple doesn’t choose early September merely to stick with tradition. The company’s fourth fiscal quarter runs from July to September each year, which means that it’s also the company’s financial year-end. Getting the iPhone announced and on sale before that means that there’s a lot more sales and revenue to close out the fiscal year. This is serious enough that when Apple was forced to delay its iPhone 12 event, it had to give investors plenty of notice to let them know that the numbers for Q4 2020 wouldn’t be as impressive as usual.

What To Expect at Apple’s September Event

It goes without saying that the highlight of next month’s event will be the new iPhone 17 lineup, particularly since it’s expected to usher in a new ultra-slim “iPhone 17 Air” to replace the iPhone Plus models of the past three generations. This model will sport an ultra-thin design, but will likely only have a single camera.

The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are also expected to sport a new design with a full-width camera bar and may move away from the titanium frame that Apple debuted with the iPhone 15 two years ago.

The iPhone 17 is likely to get the fewest design changes, although reports suggest that Apple will finally give its base model a faster 120 Hz display. However, it’s expected to follow the design language of the iPhone 16, which was already refreshed last year.

We can also expect the usual year-over-year camera improvements across the board for all models, plus more powerful A19 and A19 Pro chips to power new computational photography capabilities and AI features.

As usual, the event won’t solely be about the iPhone. Apple is also expected to unveil the Apple Watch Series 11, likely alongside a new Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch SE. The Ultra may gain satellite connectivity and 5G capabilities, but it’s less clear what we’ll see come to the other models.

Other products that could make an appearance include the third-generation AirPods Pro, a second-generation HomePod mini, and a fourth-generation Apple TV. There are also reports of a new HomePod with a screen, but even if that’s on deck, it’s not entirely clear what form it will take; it could range from something as simple as the standard cylindrical HomePod with an LCD panel on top to a HomePod with a six- or seven-inch panel on the front.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]