Apple iPhone 16 launch date revealed in alleged invite leak

Apple is famously tight-lipped about when it's going to hold its annual Autumn hardware event, and the launch of its latest iPhone models. While rumours do fly, we tend to only know for sure which date it'll fall on when Apple sends out those all-important invites. 

Those invites are also pointedly rarely leaked ahead of time, but that hasn't stopped one leaker from posting a screenshot of one for this year's event. Majin Bu says in an X posting that a source sent it to them.

It shows a bronze Apple logo with the tagline "Ready. Set. Capture." above an announcement of a potential 10 September date for the event, all of it looking relatively believable going by Apple's invites from past years.

Of course, there's absolutely no guarantee this is real – even the person posting it admitted as much in follow-up posts, confirming that they have no guarantees on it, and haven't been able to corroborate it as yet.

However, Bu has been known to get things right in the past, and, if it does prove real, it'll be an interesting one.

First, that bronze logo would suggest that the new "Desert Titanium" option for the iPhone 16 Pro models could well be spot on. The tagline also suggests that new ways of capturing video or photography are in the sights – potentially signalling some camera upgrades.

It's a little hard to get too carried away with that sort of speculation, though. The reality is that the most likely scenario is that this is a relatively sensible and therefore credible mock-up that will be proved fake by the real invites whenever they go out.

And even if it is a genuine leaked invite, there's more than enough time for Apple to change the graphics.

Hopefully, if at least the date is right, we won't have to wait too much longer to find out if this is real.