Every year Apple does its best to disguise the comparatively minor upgrades in its new iPhones by focusing on cosmetic changes—namely color finishes that haven’t previously been available to set the latest phones apart from their predecessors. The iPhone 13 Pro came in a new green and light blue, the 14 Pro gained purple, and the 15 Pro got all-new titanium finishes last year.
There are still more than six months to go until Apple unveils the iPhone refresh for 2024, but we’ve just had our first clue to the new colors that will be made available for the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max when they launch later this year. According to Twitter tipster Majin Bu, the costlier models “could” come in Desert Yellow and Cement Gray—although he stresses that this information should not be taken as 100% accurate.
If neither of those sound especially appealing, the leaker clarifies that Desert Yellow (or Desert Titanium) is “similar to the gold of the iPhone 14 Pro but deeper and heavier,” whereas Cement Gray (or Titanium Gray) is “a shade of space gray similar to that used on iPhone 6.”
New iPhone colors sometimes appear halfway through a model’s first year on the market, serving as a sly trick to bump sales as they begin to flag. That doesn’t appear to be the case here: there’s no mention of a delay to these finishes going on sale, nor would we expect to hear about the spring 2025 color options this early.
iPhone 16 is the next iPhone to arrive in September 2024, and will be followed in 2025 by the iPhone 17 and iPhone SE 4. The new iPhone will arrive at a September launch event – find out how to watch the Apple September event live stream. For iPhone SE 4 and other new Apple products, see when is the next Apple event. You might also like our iPhone buying guide, best iPhone deals, and comparison of every iPhone that is available to buy today.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.