New leak reveals the design of Apple’s new iPhone 16 Pro

Apple will launch the next iPhone 16 Pro smartphones early next month, and new photos have been released of a quartet of Pro phones that show off a key part of the design that should help sell Apple's latest handheld.

Long-time Apple leaker Sonny Dickson has released exclusive images of the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro. The four models shown illustrate the design elements taken from the iPhone 15 Pro family, as well as the all-important cosmetic choices to attract the fashionistas.

These are not the final retail models, but late-stage dummy samples used for marketing and retail presentations. The photos and images you see, especially from lifestyle genre shoots, will most likely be these dummy devices. After all, the latest software doesn't necessarily have to be on display; it can be added in post-production if needed.

What we can see are the highly anticipated colors. Dickson previously revealed the color variants of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus: “The colors of the iPhone 16 include regular white and black, but pink, blue and green are also in the mix.”

The colors of the iPhone Pro have always been a bit more subdued than the solid colors of the standard iPhone, and that will remain the case with the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. Expect Apple to offer white, black, and silver models (and expect them to have some incredibly artsy names to describe the hues).

The fourth model will stand out. The long-awaited bronze model seems to be an official option for buyers of one of the new handsets. I expect this color to play an important role in the marketing of the new iPhone Pro models.

Looking closer, you can see the new record button. This complements last year's action button, the latter allowing the user a certain level of customization to decide on apps and actions triggered by the button. The record button will be closely tied to the camera, and it's safe to assume that the camera shutter will return in some form. That it's capacitive and offers pressure sensitivity, so a half-press allows focus to be locked before the image is taken – in keeping with an age-old practice – seems a given.

The camera lens layout is inherited from the iPhone 15 Pro. The layout allows stereoscopic videos to be recorded in landscape mode. The resulting video files can be processed into Apple's “Spatial Video” format for display on the Apple Vision Pro headset, helping to connect the new ecosystem to the largest.

The biggest change is the software that isn't being shown, namely the integration of generative AI into Apple's operating systems, including iOS. Unfortunately, Apple won't have the technology, backronymed Apple Intelligence, ready for the iPhone 16 Pro launch. A subset of the features will be available in October, but the full suite won't be available until late in the first quarter of 2025.

Until then, Tim Cook and his team hope that bronze will be enough.

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