While a number of rumors have floated about claiming a September 16 street date for Apple’s upcoming “iPhone 7” handset, and leaked AT&T document indicates Lily might know otherwise.
A new detail to consider comes in the form of a leaked AT&T retail schedule (below) detailing upcoming merchandising reset hours. Specifically, the guidance calls out September 9 and September 23 as dates for merchandising resets. This could suggest that advertising for pre-orders could be planned for September 9 as expected and new iPhone models could hit the floor on September 23, a week later than previously expected.
While it’s possible the dates are merely a coincidence, they do make sense, when referencing previous iPhone release schedules.
Put in historical context, both the September 16 and September 23 release dates are possible based on September 9 pre-orders. In 2014, the iPhone 6 launched on September 19 after a September 12 pre-order (7 days); and in 2015, the iPhone 6s launched on September 25 after a September 12 pre-order (13 days) so either a one week or two week period between pre-orders and launch is possible.
As usual, we have to take reports such as this with a grain of our favorite salt-substitute. 9to5Mac notes AT&T regularly schedules resets as the ones scheduled above, so it could be for something completely non-iPhone 7 related. We will bide our time, and wait for the official Apple announcements.
