Corroborating The Information reporting from over the weekend, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has laid out his predictions for the next few years of iPhone launches in a post on Craft today. Most notably, Apple will move away from releasing all of its flagship phones at the same time in the fall, a rigid calendar that has been in place since the iPhone 4s in 2011.
Going forward, Apple is moving to launching its cheaper budget iPhones in the first half of the year, and Pro models in the fall. This means you will see versions of the iPhone 18 and iPhone 19 arrive in the first and latter half of the same year, across 2027, respectively.
2025 will be the last year of normality for the iPhone release schedule. Kuo says the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Slim (or what some have been calling the iPhone 17 Air) will arrive in the second half of 2025 as normal, probably in September.
In 2026, the launch plan diverges from the long-running norm. In the first half of 2026, likely in the spring months of March or April, Kuo says you will see Apple release the iPhone 17e. (This would follow about a year after the iPhone 16e launch, which Apple unveiled in February 2025.)
Then, later in 2026, Apple will launch the flagship pro models of the iPhone 18 lineup. That includes the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, the iPhone 18 Slim, and the first foldable iPhone. Notably, the base model iPhone 18 will not be part of this group.
Instead, Kuo says the base model iPhone 18 will release alongside the iPhone 18e in spring 2027, about six months after the iPhone 18 Pro release date. This would mark the first time the base model iPhone of a generation does not launch at the same time as the higher-end models.
Similarly, in late 2027, Apple will debut the iPhone 19 Pro, iPhone 19 Pro Max, the second-generation foldable iPhone, and the iPhone 19 Slim. This means the base model ‘iPhone 19’ and ‘iPhone 19e’ would again follow months later, in 2028.
The Information report cited product marketing and optimizing manufacturing as the main reasons for the diverging schedules. Many of Apple’s competitors in the smartphone space have flagship launches in the spring.
Kuo echos similar motivations. He says Apple’s primary reason to adopt a biannual release schedule, with launches in the first half and second half, is to respond to intense competition, especially in China. Apple will compete directly against competitor launches in the first half of the year, by moving major new iPhone releases alongside them.
Increasing competition in the space has also led Apple to need to make more different models of iPhone than ever before, such as with the new iPhone 16e line and the upcoming foldables. Launching every single model in the same fall window “risks diluting marketing efforts”. By spreading them out, it should give the base models more time to breathe and capture consumer interest, without being overshadowed too much by the Pro models.
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