The iPhone 16 Pro's titanium finish could be getting a shiny upgrade over your old iPhone 15 Pro
Are upgraded finishes coming?
![An iPhone 15 Pro Max against an abstract multi-colored retro background.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/NGXypstrmRJ5q73nKPYEZS-320-80.jpeg)
Your iPhone 15 Pro might not be all that old, the handsets only went on sale around six months ago, but attention both inside and outside of Apple has very much turned to what will come next. That's thought to be the iPhone 16 Pro, joining the iPhone 16 as the replacement for the 2023 models. We've been hearing rumors about what the new phones will have to offer for months now, and a new report might have given us a great indication of what we can expect in turns of the new Pro models and their titanium finish.
According to a new report, Apple is working on a revised method for finishing the titanium construction of the new models that will produce a finish that will be more akin to the shinier stainless steel that we're familiar with from the iPhone 14 Pro and similar models.
If the report is correct the new iPhones will continue to use the same titanium construction that makes the current crop of Pro iPhones so light, compared to previous models, while doing away with the slightly dull, brushed metal finish that came with that material switch.
A shiny new iPhone
This leak comes via the Naver blog and user yeux1122, an account that has shared plenty of iPhone rumors in the past. MacRumors was the first to spot the new post which says that a whole new type of titanium processing will be used.
"Unlike the 15 Pro models, the iPhone 16 Pro models are said to have a method with improved titanium processing and color processing," the post says via machine translation. It goes on to say that the result will be a more polished material that will be less prone to scratching compared to the stainless steel construction of pre-iPhone 15 Pro models.
If Apple follows the pattern that we've become accustomed to it will announce the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max during an event in the early part of September later this year. We should then expect the company to make the iPhones available for preorder the Friday of the same week while they will then go on sale the following Friday.
September will be a big month for Apple with the Apple Watch Series X and a refreshed Apple Watch Ultra also likely to be unveiled, while the month will also be when a slew of new software updates arrive.
Master your iPhone in minutes
iMore offers spot-on advice and guidance from our team of experts, with decades of Apple device experience to lean on. Learn more with iMore!
Those updates, likely to include iOS 18, macOS 15, and more, are set to be announced at WWDC on June 10 before being made available in developer beta form on the same day. From there, a months-long beta process will then see the updates made available to the public alongside those new iPhones.
The iOS 18 and macOS 15 software updates are expected to bring some hot new Apple AI features to iPhones and Macs, with Apple in talks with Google and OpenAI about using their respective generative AI technologies. It isn't yet clear what the new features will be, but we can surely expect some upgrades to Siri along the way.
More from iMore
Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.