We may finally know the iPhone 8’s release date and update list

Apple’s upcoming new iPhone 8 — or iPhone Pro, or whatever Apple ends up calling it — is the most hotly anticipated smartphone of 2017. In fact, it’s so hotly anticipated that even now, the week Samsung is set to unveil its brand new flagship Galaxy Note 8, search volume for the iPhone 8 is still three times higher than Note 8 search volume. Just take a look at this graph on Google Trends… it’s crazy! Rumors suggest that the Galaxy Note 8 will become available for pre-order tomorrow, just one day after Samsung unveils it, and there will be a whole bunch of freebies available to anyone who pre-orders it. Then, the phone will supposedly be released next month on Friday, September 15th.

Why is Samsung making the Galaxy Note 8 available for pre-order so long before the phone is actually released? We may have just gotten our answer, and it comes in the form of a new report that may have finally revealed the iPhone 8’s release date.

The first attempt at outing the iPhone 8’s release date occurred all the way back in May. It wasn’t pretty. A budding “leaker” shared information from his “sources” suggesting that Apple’s would host a press conference on September 17th to unveil the iPhone 8, iPhone 7s Plus, and iPhone 7s, and the phones would then be released on September 25th. It may very well have been the stupidest iPhone rumor we had ever seen, and we said as much in our post laughing at it.

Apple does indeed unveil and release new iPhones in September each year, and anyone with a calendar can take a stab at when those events will occur. Well, almost anyone. September 17th, the proposed date for Apple’s iPhone 8 event, falls on a Sunday. Yeah, there’s no way in hell that Apple will ever host a press conference on a Sunday. The the proposed release date of September 25th falls on a Monday. Again, not gonna happen. Ever.

On Tuesday, a new iPhone 8 release date emerged in a fresh leak, and this one seems much more believable. A few photos of a supposed iPhone 8 carrier presentation were posted to Chinese microblogging site Weibo, and the person who posted them translated some of this information. According to the presentation, Apple’s new iPhones will go on sale during the third week of September, which would place the iPhone 8 release date on September 22nd.

This time frame isn’t confirmed, but it definitely makes sense. It would also mean Apple is set to unveil its three new iPhone models during the week of September 10th, likely just two or three days before the Galaxy Note 8 goes on sale. Still wondering why Samsung is about to push Note 8 pre-orders so hard?