Leakers may have given away the new iPhone’s pre-order date
Given Apple has announced a new iPhone in every September for the last five years, you don’t get any prizes for making a predicting a new Apple phone in early Autumn. Getting the exact date, however, gets you a bit more kudos, and that’s exactly what German news site Macerkopf claims to have.
Citing two sources working for different German phone networks, the site claims that Apple will open pre-orders for its 2018 iPhones on Friday 14 September. That may not seem like it tells us very much – Apple could open pre-orders for a phone released in 2024 – but on past form we can read quite a lot into that date.
Related: iPhone 9 rumours
For starters, it gives us an idea of when Apple will make the grand reveal. Historically, the company has unveiled its iPhones at a midweek event, giving fans a couple of days to read the wall-to-wall coverage, and only opened pre-orders a couple of days afterwards. That would point to Wednesday 12 September. Thursday isn’t a big enough gap for pre-orders and Tuesday would be on the anniversary of the 9/11 attack, which would be considered bad form to put it mildly.
So what does the leak tell us about actual release dates? Apple doesn’t tend to have hugely long run-ins from pre-order to purchase – usually no longer than a week. Pre-orders for the iPhone 8 opened on 15 September, with shipping a week later. True, the iPhone X arrived later – on 3 November – but the pre-order lead-in time was the same seven days, just shifted to the end of October.
Related: iPhone X Plus rumours
How much can you trust the leaked information? Well, I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but as leaks go it sounds pretty solid – and if someone was making it up, they’ve gone for a really boring rumour to start, given it matches past form so closely. It’s only in three weeks’ time, so we won’t have too long to wait to find out either way.
Will you be marking that pre-order date in your calendar, or are you happy with your current phone? Let us know on Twitter: @TrustedReviews
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
