New 2019 iPhone: Everything we know about Apple’s upcoming update

There are a few dependable things – and no doubt a few surprises

General view of the Apple IPhone XR during the Covent Garden re-opening and iPhone XR launch at Apple store, Covent Garden (Getty)

New year, new iPhone. Apple is gearing up for the 2019 line-up of its handsets – and it could prove to be one of the most important in the company's history.

The new models will be arriving just as Apple's financial performance is under unprecedented scrutiny. And Apple's money situation still largely means its iPhone situation – a vast proportion of the company's profits come from the iPhone, and getting people excited about upgrading.

This year, it will be offering a whole host of upgrades in the hope of encouraging people to buy as many new iPhones as possible.

They include changes to the phone's cameras, as well as upgrades to its processors. Even many months away from the release, some information is clear about the iPhone – and much remains mysterious.

Release date

There's one thing that's dependable about the new iPhone: when it will arrive. Apple will almost certainly launch the phone at an event on its campus near the beginning of September, and it will then go on sale a couple of weeks later.

The only exception is if Apple once again launches a new and different version of the phone. In 2017, Apple released the iPhone and then took a breather before letting people buy the more new iPhone X; a year later, the XR took more time to come out, and also included a more radical redesign.

But they have all been shown off at the same early September event, and if that does change it will be a shock that could cause grave problems for Apple. So expect something early in September.

Name

Until recently, Apple had a dependable system for new iPhones. There'd be a phone with a number, and then would come that same number with an S added to it, before the number increased: 4, 4S, 5, 5S, 6, 6S and then 7.

But in 2017, Apple started to confuse everyone. It made the iPhone 8, which was a little unusual though not entirely surprising, but it also broke out of its naming conventions entirely and made the iPhone X.

A year later, everything got even more confusing, with the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. It wasn't clear what exactly any of those names meant or how they had been chosen.

This time around, Apple seems to be facing a challenge. It surely can't add any more letters onto those names, but equally isn't likely to head back to the old naming conventions. Some have suggested this year's phone could be called the iPhone XI; others have guessed that Apple might finally do away with numbers, as it does with its iPads.

Whatever the name is will probably not be unveiled until the event or just before it. Naming and other marketing information is kept far more securely within Apple, since there are no external manufacturers or suppliers that can leak it.

Cameras

As with recent years, the camera is likely to be the big distinguishing feature of the 2019 iPhone. Or, rather, the cameras.

Apple is rumoured to be working on a camera system for at least some versions of the phone that will include three different lenses. It's not exactly what it will do with that extra lens – it might be used to capture more light, depth data, or to improve photos after they have been taken – and that might remain hidden until the phone actually comes out.

But it seems clear that a hardware update of that significance is likely to be matched by similar changes in the way people use the phone.

Design

Beyond that, it's unlikely that Apple will change the overall makeup and look of the phones much. After a couple of years of radical redesigns, this is expected to be a more quiet one.

As such, it's likely the line-up will stay mostly the same: a smaller and a bigger premium phone, alongside a cheaper version that sits in the middle. And they'll probably look mostly the same, shiny metal, a big slab of glass and still perhaps the famous notch sitting in the top of the screen.

Other features

Everything you'd expect out of a new iPhone will probably be here: new and improved processors that make the phone run more quickly, improvements to the screen, tweaks to the design.

There might be some features missing, too. For some time, the iPhones have been dogged by rumours that the 3D touch feature that arrived with the 6s in 2014 is on the way out. It has already dropped off the iPhone XR. It might not be there this time around on any of the phones.

Software

The new iPhone will run iOS 13, which should also be released at the same time the phone comes out. Some rumours have suggested that could be a fairly substantial redesign, with new artificial intelligence features and changes to the way the home screen works, and including some big alterations that were left out of iOS 12 in lieu of a focus on stability.

That update will come to all of the new phones. But Apple's updates are always geared towards their new hardware, too, and we might see software tweaks that reflect new features in the 2019 models.