It looks like the iPhone 16 design has leaked again

Carrie Marshall
·2 min read
Chinese iPhone 16 leak.
Chinese iPhone 16 leak.

The rather jaggy image above is the latest iPhone 16 leak, one of several images shared on the Chinese social network Weibo. The photos are of dummy units most likely from accessory manufacturers; they need to see and test their products with the phone well in advance, and we've seen multiple CAD renders leaking from similar sources in recent months.

As you can see, the images seem to corroborate the previous CAD renders that show some key differences between the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 range. In particular the Pro and the Pro Max are expected to have marginally larger screens, up from 6.1 and 6.7 inches to 6.3 and 6.9 inches respectively, and you can see the difference quite clearly here.

What do the new iPhone leaks tell us about the iPhone 16?

The images, spotted by MacRumors, also show the much-rumoured change from a mute switch to an Action button, a change that's already happened on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. The new images show the button on the standard iPhone 16 models but it appears to be larger than the one on the current Pro. The new camera capture button is also visible, located on the same side as the power button. In the US that's where the 5G mmWave antenna currently lives so clearly there's going to be some internal shuffling going on.

The other thing you can clearly see on the dummy iPhones are the camera bumps, which in the case of the standard iPhone and iPhone Plus look much more like pill-shaped arrangement of the iPhone X. In this new arrangement the wide and ultrawide lenses are stacked vertically, with the microphone on the right and the flash located just outside and to the right of the camera bump.

It seems likely that these dummies are the real (model) thing: with the iPhone 16 launch expected to follow Apple's usual timetable with a September launch date and shipping shortly afterwards, there's no time for any kind of radical changes now: what you see here and in the other images should be very close to what you'll be able to hold in your hand later this year.