New iPhone release date: When is the next Apple handset coming out?

There's just days to go

Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi speaks during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on the Apple Park campus on September 12, 2017 in Cupertino, California (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The new iPhone is coming. But when?

There are probably just days to go until Apple reveals the new handset. And just days after that it'll be ready and waiting, for those who've successfully clicked or queued their way into buying it.

All of that makes it just about the worst possible time to buy an iPhone. They are all their usual price, and are just about to be overtaken by a whole host of brand new phones.

If Apple's previous launches are anything to go by, the new iPhone's launch is likely to happen on 12 September. It almost certainly will happen that week, at least.

As ever, the launch will be somewhere in the Bay Area. Most likely it will happen at Apple's Steve Jobs Theater at its new campus, where it held last year's event and which has been specially designed for such events.

The actual release will happen roughly a week and a half later, on the following Thursday. That's when the queues will finally be allowed into Apple Stores to buy the phone, and when they'll arrive at the homes of people who bought them online in the week or so before.

This year's release is much more mysterious than normal – apart from the number of phones (three) and their vague design (the same as the current one) very little has been revealed. It's not even clear what it will be called, given that Apple now has a fairly complicated naming scheme for its phones.

But what we do know is that buying an iPhone now is going to be an even worse idea than it normally would at this time of year. Apple is likely to make a cheaper model that takes most of the features and design of the iPhone X and bundles it into a cheaper new handset – meaning that, even if you weren't taken with any of the new features announced, you might be able to get this year's tech at a much better price once everything is released.