I woke up to these rumored dates today:

• iPhone 12 releasing October 23/24
• iPhone 12 Pro releasing October 23/24
• iPhone 12 Mini releasing November 13/14
• iPhone 12 Pro Max releasing November 20/21

Now these could be absolutely correct, and if so, I’m happy that the model I would be interested in, the 12 Pro, will be in the first release. That said, this schedule seems weird to me. Maybe it’s weird and real, and it will just be a weird year, but it seems messier than Apple likes to be with their releases.

Through 2016, Apple had an event announcing the new iPhone (and from the 6 on, iPhones) and they all came out at the same time (edge cases be damned, the Wiki pages for those phones could all show a definitive date of release).

The first big deviation was in 2017 when the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus came out in September, but the iPhone X came out in November.

The second deviation was in 2018 when the iPhone XS came out in September, and then the iPhone XR came out in October.

In 2019 Apple got back on track with all 3 iPhones, the 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max all coming out on the same Friday in September.

So releasing different models in different months isn’t new, but what throws me about this timeline is that the Pro line is being split up as well. This isn’t the end of the world, but it certainly makes the marketing more confusing.

This rumor makes me think a couple things.

1. This is way messier than Apple would like.
2. COVID is obviously to blame, and it’s like a miracle we’re getting tens of millions of new iPhones in the supply chain at all this season, so best not to complain about it too much.
3. The iPhone 12 Pro Max is going to be marketed almost as a 4th product in the iPhone lineup, not as just the bigger version of the smaller Pro, as it had been for the last 2 years. That camera appears to be the differentiator, which is going to really tempt me, even though I don’t want a phone that big.
4. The silver lining of this is that Apple is going to triple their news cycles as new iPhone content is going to flood feeds and subscription boxes for over a month as new devices keep coming out.