- Likely to launch early September 2017
- On-sale mid-September 2017
Apple has launched a new iPhone in September every year since the iPhone 5 in 2012. September iPhone launches have a pretty consistent track record.
There's no reason the iPhone 8 is going to deviate from this plan. In fact, there are several reasons it'll stick with early September.
First, the most loyal iPhone buyers are now on Apple's annual iPhone upgrade contract. They're able to turn their old handset in every 12 months and expect the new big thing.
Second, all of the iPhone 8 leaks we've heard so far are consistent with previous cycles. The iPhone rumors drumbeat is playing at the same exact tempo. It's getting louder and faster now that it's April.
We can even get more specific about the iPhone 8 release date: Apple held its iPhone 7 launch event on September 7, while the events for the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6 were both on September 9 of their respective launch years.
Even going further back you'll see similar dates, so again it's likely that Apple will stick to this sort of early September schedule schedule for the iPhone 8.
Of course, you won't be able to buy the iPhone 8 for another one to two weeks after Apple CEO Tim Cook first holds up the handset. It's routinely available for pre-order the Friday of the launch event and ships the following Friday.
Now, there's a hard-to-believe outside chance that not every version of the next iPhone will launch at the same time. A new rumor points to a delay for the best-looking version, the iPhone 8 AMOLED model with a curved display, also being dubbed the iPhone Edition. We're skeptical of such a move, but we do keep hearing the disheartening rumor over and over.