New Apple Leak Reveals iPhone 14 Release Surprise

On September 7, Apple will announce the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Or so we thought...
In a surprisingly late leak, news has broken that Apple will not release an ‘iPhone 14 Max’. Instead, the company’s first 6.7-inch sub-$1000 smartphone will be called the ‘iPhone 14 Plus’. And this makes sense for many reasons. First, the leak — and it came in two parts. Part one landed via Twitter when a photo of a seemingly genuine next-gen iPhone case carried ‘iPhone 14 Plus’ branding. This prompted further investigation from 9to5Mac, which subsequently verified the name and instructions given to third-party case makers.

“Sources familiar with the matter say Apple has chosen to name the next larger iPhone, the iPhone 14 Plus. In addition, at least since July, iPhone case makers have been told to not use the brand iPhone 14 Max, as it won’t be the actual name of the product,” wrote 9to5Mac’s José Adorno.

And this makes perfect sense because Apple has consistently used the ‘Max’ brand to indicate a premium version of something: it is both the flagship iPhone and a top-end version of Apple’s M1 chipset. Significantly, ‘Max’ sits above ‘Pro’ in the M1 range: M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra.

09/05 Update: with the iPhone 14 launch just days away, MacRumors has revealed that iPhone 14 Pro models are running into problems with their new always-on displays.
“[Apple] is reportedly still encountering bugs and is scrambling software engineers from different teams, including the Apple Watch, to finish the always-on display experience before launch,” the source claims.

The fixes cannot be applied to the new models before they go on sale, so the source says Apple will push an update to iOS 16 (either iOS 16.1 or 16.0.1) “soon after launch”.

Separately, MacRumors’ source says the Pro’s always-on display will bring permanently visible widgets and notifications to the range for the first time — a long-awaited catch-up feature to Android. In addition, the status bar on Pro models will also have a full-width battery indicator, thanks to the smaller space taken up by their new pill-shaped punch hole displays. This was last seen on the iPhone 8.