iPhone 7 release date: Apple handset will hit shelves on 16 September, leak suggests

The phone might not be called iPhone 7 at all, the same leaker has suggested

Employees cheer before the launch of Apple Inc. iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 inch at the company's Omotesando store on March 31, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

The iPhone 7 might have got its release date – two months before it’s actually launched.

Apple’s next handset is set to hit shelves on 16 September, according to usually reliable leaker Evan Blass.

The phone had always been expected to launch in September, since Apple has launched and then released all of the recent iPhones that same month. But the new leak appears to give a clear date they’ll come out – and prepare people for getting into the long queues that usually form in anticipation.

If the phone is indeed released on 16 September, then the launch event where Apple show it off will probably be around a week and a half before – the week of 5 September.

That would make sense, since Apple tends to launch its phones on a Friday, which 16 September is. And the rumoured release date would sit right in the middle of that of the last two phones, which came out towards the end of September.

Apple hasn’t publicly given any suggestion that it is planning an event for the new iPhone, or even that it is working on one. But its schedule has become more predictable in recent years, with the iPhones being launched early in September and then made available to the public around a week and a half later.

Mr Blass also suggested that there will be two iPhone models released this year, which are being codenamed Sonora and Dos Palos. But that won’t include a rumoured “pro” model, which has been said to include extra features like a dual-lens camera, he said.

The leaker has also said in the past that he doesn’t believe that the phones released later this year will be called iPhone 7 at all. He said that this year’s handsets might be named in a way that references the fact that they will remain mostly unchanged from last year’s phones – and that the 7 name might be held back for the expected big launch in 2017.