New iPhone 16 Pro color leak hints at a possible return for one popular color Apple ditched last year

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max
(Image credit: Apple)

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have been on sale for around six months at this point and buyers get to choose between a handful of colors including Natural Titanium, Blue Titanium, White Titanium, and Black Titanium. Some might argue that the colors are various shades of gray, but it appears that things could be about to change when the models are replaced by the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

A new leak claims to have shared details about the new colors that the best iPhones of 2024 will come in and, if it's correct, things look set to be changed up somewhat. If correct, four colors will be offered this time out including three that the uncharitable among us could argue are indeed different shades of gray. But most notable is the return of a color that was popular among buyers of older iPhones before Apple ditched it in 2023.

The color that is tipped to be added to the mix this year is Rose, a throwback to the Rose Gold colors of yesteryear. In the case of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro the color looks set to be a more yellowy gold than the distinctly red gold of previous colors beating the same, name, but it's difficult to know for sure until we see the real thing — colors on-screen are never a great indication of how things will look in the real world. Add in the fact that the iPhones will be made of titanium and it's entirely possible the color that ships will be notably different to the one we see below.

Going for gold

The leak, which comes courtesy of a Weibo post shared by ShrimpApplePro on the X social network, suggests that Space Black, White, Gray, Rose will be the colors offered when the Pro iPhones ship this year, with the Blue Titanium color of the iPhone 15 Pro now thought to have been canned and replaced by the Rose finish.

It's also suggested that the Space Black colorway will be similar to that of the iPhone 14 Pro while the White model will be similar to the same color from that model as well.

This isn't the first time we've seen rumors suggest that the iPhone 16 Pro colors will differ from last year's, however. A so-called Desert Yellow was tipped by leaker Majin Bu on X last month, suggesting that there might well be something to this latest report.

If Apple follows its usual release cadence we can expect it to announce the new iPhones in the first couple of weeks of September before making them available to buy around 10 days later. The new models are expected to be unveiled alongside the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models, while it's also likely that Apple will unveil a new Apple Watch X and/or newly refreshed Apple Watch Ultra around the same time, too.

The Pro iPhones are expected to sport a new A18 Pro chip with a recent report suggesting that the silicon has been designed specifically to improve the performance of Apple AI technology that is expected to be unveiled alongside iOS 18 at June's WWDC event. That software is expected to be released to the public shortly before the release of the new iPhones this fall.

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Oliver Haslam
Contributor

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.