iPhone 7 and 6S release date confirmed; what will new Apple TV bring?

By Will Stabley | August 31, 2015

Apple hasn’t admitted that it’s launching the iPhone 7 or the iPhone 6S or both, but it’s acknowledged that it’s about to launch something at its forthcoming media event. With the next generation smartphones coming up on their annual schedule for launch, it’s a given that they’ll be the headliners at the event. But the company is also teasing Siri in a way which suggests that Apple is about to move from its set top box to actual televisions.

As it turns out, the “Hey Siri give us a hint” tagline for the iPhone event is a bit of a ruse. Ask Siri that question and you’ll get answers ranging from “Look deep within yourself and you will find the answer” to “Why don’t you check a rumors blog? That’s what I do.” But it’s not that difficult to ascertain where Apple is headed with its new smartphone lineup. The existing iPhone 6 has been by far the most popular to date, so there will be an iPhone 6S to continue cashing in on its form factor.

The primary issue at hand is whether Apple also launches a newly redesigned iPhone 7 as the new flagship phone while debuting the 6S as a midrange product. Secondary questions include whether the iPhone 6 will remain as a cheaper model or be replaced by a more colorful iPhone 6C, as happened two years ago with the 5C, and whether a long-popular four inch form factor will be brought back to the iPhone 6x lineup after having vanished last year, shocking tens of millions of longtime iPhone users who are still grumbling about it every chance they get, some of whom are still vowing to boycott the larger iPhone models until they get their way.

The “Hey Siri” part of the tease points to a new product debuting which relies on Siri for voice control. As the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch already have it, the logical deduction is that a new product is coming which will rely primarily on voice commands. The long rumored Apple television sets are easily the best candidate, as telling the TV set what you want to watch could be considered more intuitive than trying to use a forty button remote. But most who tune in for the media event will simply want to know when they can get their hands on the iPhone 6S, or as it were, iPhone 7. And that answer is now confirmed.

The media event is taking place on September 9th, and if tradition holds, the iPhone 6S/7 release date can be counted on to take place two to nine days later on a Friday. If the Apple television sets are indeed announced, their launch date could be a month or more after the event, as Apple has no rush when it comes to launching new products which don’t directly replace old ones.