This is the date when the iPhone 15 line will go on sale says a well-connected journalist

If you're waiting for Apple to introduce the iPhone 15 series and then release its 2023 handsets, we have some information on when all of this might occur thanks to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman who mentioned some dates in this weekend's Power Onnewsletter. Gurman says that he's been told to expect Apple to introduce the next iteration of the iPhone on September 12th or 13th and put the device on sale September 22nd. Using past data to predict the future, we could see pre-orders begin on September 15th.

One of the dates that Gurman listed for Apple's new product event, September 13th, happens to be the date that several wireless carriers told employees not to call in sick on. If I happened to be a betting man, I'd go with the 13th since iPhone announcement day usually results in an "all hands on deck" mentality for wireless providers as they get inundated with calls about the new models.

So start circling your calendar: September 12th or 13th will be the big announcement (including the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2), pre-orders could begin on September 15th, and on September 22nd the new phones will be released. That is, if all of these rumored dates are legit. Still, you can use a pencil with an eraser to mark your calendar.

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are rumored to be getting some big changes this year including the addition of the Dynamic Island, 48MP stacked sensors for the Wide main camera on the back, the 4nm (which is really an enhanced 5nm) A16 Bionic chip used on the iPhone 14 Pro models, and larger batteries.

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will have a new titanium chassis, but the biggest and most important change is the use of the brand new A17 Bionic SoC produced using TSMC's N3B 3nm process node. This means we could see a substantial increase in the number of transistors from the 16 billion found in the A16 Bionic. The more transistors inside a chip, typically the better the performance and energy efficiency.

The iPhone 15 Pro models will also get a hike in RAM to 8GB from 6GB (the non-Pro models will stay at 6GB), and also get a nice hike in battery capacity. The iPhone 15 Pro Max will be the first iPhone to feature a periscope lens which allows the phone to offer improved optical zoom from 3x on the iPhone 14 Pro Max to 5x-6x on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Unfortunately, a price increase is overdue and we could see the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max priced $100 and $200 higher respectively.

All four phones will feature a USB-C port replacing the proprietary Lightning port, although the iPhone 15 Pro models will transfer data at a faster speed than the non-Pro models.

So now is the time to start crystalizing your strategy. Which model do you want? What configuration best suits your needs? Of course, some of the biggest decisions you'll make won't happen until you find out what deals are available and that won't happen until the new phones are made official.

Meanwhile, Apple has finally admitted that "the smartphone market has been in a decline for the last couple of quarters in the United States." As we told you last week, Apple reported a 2.4% slide in iPhone revenue during the fiscal fourth quarter and the $39.67 billion in sales generated by the device failed to reach the estimate of $39.91 billion expected by Wall Street and the stock tumbled $9.18 or 4.8% to $181.99.

While Apple does agree that the current environment is a challenging one, it blames the shortfall in iPhone revenue on currency fluctuations. But things should improve. While the 2024 fiscal first quarter, the so-called holiday quarter that runs from October through December, is usually the biggest one for iPhone sales, comparisons to last year's holiday quarter should be better than usual. That's because last year workers at the Foxconn facility that produces the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Maxran into some pandemic related issues that cost Apple $6 billion in iPhone sales.