Insider surprised by Apple’s “unusual” pre-launch move ahead of iPhone 16 release

Gurman has also revealed that Apple is going to hold an unusual meeting for retail store employees on the evening of September 12 or the morning of September 13 and attendance will be mandatory. That’s strange because pre-launch sessions are usually held on Sundays and not during the week.

Gurman didn’t expand on why the meeting was moved up but we are guessing Apple wants to give store employees ample time to get acquainted with Apple Intelligence features.

The iPhone 16 won’t ship out of the gate with Apple Intelligence, with the company reportedly targeting October for the first batch of features. The full roll-out will reportedly not be complete until the first half of 2025.

Some of the features are now available in beta and they aren’t what you would call game-changing but the sentiments may change as more updates are released.

Apple Intelligence will bring to the table an improved Siri with more contextual awareness, prioritization of important notifications, summaries of web pages and voice notes, phone call transcriptions, and writing tools.