Apple has announced it will host an event on 12 September at the Steve Jobs Theater in the company’s Cupertino campus, where it is widely expected to unveil new models of the iPhone.
Analysts believe it plans to release three new phones this year, including one with a larger display than previous models. They also expect Apple to release an iPhone with a edge-to-edge display similar to the iPhone X but using less-costly LCD screen technology.
The company’s event invitation made heavy use of the color gold, fueling speculation on social media that the company plans to launch a gold-colored successor to the iPhone X, which was made available only in silver and gray last year. Documents filed at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission unsealed earlier this year showed it had sought approval for a gold version of its iPhone X.
A few hours after the company’s announcement, 9to5Mac, a technology news website, posted photographs of two gold iPhone models stacked on top each other, with a larger-screened model on the bottom. Both models resemble the current iPhone X.
The site said the new flagship model will be called the iPhone XS and that Apple also plans to release a new version of the Apple Watch with a larger display by reducing the edges around it.
Apple commentator John Gruber commented: “Product marketing images and the names of new iPhones almost never leak from Apple. iPhone names sometimes get leaked in iOS builds, but not photos like these.
“These photos were almost certainly intended for the keynote. To my memory, this is unprecedented. My guess is that no one at Apple gave these images to 9to5Mac. I suspect Rambo, who is extraordinarily clever at finding things, somehow discovered them through a URL that was exposed publicly but should not have been.”
9to5Mac told Reuters the photographs were not mockups and represented Apple’s actual planned products but declined to say how it had obtained them.