Apple iPhone 15 launch today: here’s how the date compares to previous launches
The iPhone launch date has been, generally, a thing of habit - and that hasn't changed for 2023
The iPhone 15 launch date once again follows a well-trodden path. Generally, Apple holds an event in the second full week of September, followed by an on-sale date for the upcoming phone at the end of the following week.
Two weeks ago Apple confirmed its Wonderlust iPhone 15 launch would take place later today, Tuesday 12 September. It means the iPhone 15 release date should be Friday 22 September, with pre-orders live from Friday 15 September.
Major iPhone launch events have traditionally taken place on a Tuesday (though last year’s took place on a Wednesday and was a week earlier than usual, contradicting the guesses from some seasoned Apple watchers).
The iPhone release date is normally 10 days later on a Friday, though there was later availability for some handsets during 2020 and the fresh-start iPhone X, for example, didn’t make it out the gate until November 2017.
When has the iPhone launch taken place in the past?
The original iPhone came out in January 2007 (though the UK launch was towards the end of that year) with some launches taking place in June and even October after that. But since the iPhone 5, things have settled in the September slot. The exception to this was in 2020, when the delay to the iPhone 12 lineup was caused by the global slowdown in production due to the pandemic. The iPhone 13 series returned to normal and the iPhone 14 launch was earlier than the launch 12 months before it.
- iPhone 5 – 12 September 2012
- iPhone 5S / 5C – 10 September 2013
- iPhone 6 / 6 Plus – 9 September 2014
- iPhone 6S / 6S Plus – 9 September 2015
- iPhone 7 / 7 Plus – 7 September 2016
- iPhone 8 / 8 Plus / X – 12 September 2017
- iPhone XS / XS Max / XR – 12 September 2018
- iPhone 11 – 10 September 10 2019
- iPhone 12 – 13 October 13 2020 (later due to manufacturing delays with the pandemic)
- iPhone 13 – 14 September 2021
- iPhone 14 – 7 September 2022
- iPhone 15 – 12 September 2023
What are we expecting from this September’s Apple launch?
We are expecting four iPhones to appear this year. An iPhone 15 Mini is (sadly) not one of them. Instead, all the signs point towards the ‘standard’ models comprising the main iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, with the iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island coming to the standard models.
In terms of the Pro models, we’re expecting there to be an iPhone 15 Pro and then an iPhone 15 Pro Max following the pattern we’ve seen over the last couple of generations. However, we are hearing the Pro Max could actually be called Ultra this year and will have some different features such as a periscope camera lens over the standard model. Both 2023 iPhone series seem set to use the same 6.1 and 6.7-inch sizes that we’ve seen in recent generations of iPhone.
There will, of course, also be the announcement of the availability of the new version of the iPhone’s software – iOS 17. There should be a new Apple Watch 9 and maybe a Watch Ultra 2, too. We may also get the AirPods Max 2 and cheaper AirPods Lite. It’s possible we could get new iPads, too.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
