2027 Is the Year iPhones Lose Their Numbers

Opinion piece. My own view, not confirmed by Apple or anyone else.

Here's a thought I can't shake. Somewhere down the line, whoever is running Apple by then walks out on stage and says "here's iPhone 42". Just doesn't sound right, you know? And once you've heard it like that, you can't unhear it. The numbers can't go on forever. So this is my prediction for next year, and I'll admit up front that the argument isn't as strong as I'd like, but I'm making it anyway. 2027 is the year iPhones lose their numbers.

The lineup is getting silly

Start with the lineup as it stands this week. iPhone 17e. iPhone 17. iPhone Air. iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, which only went on sale this week. The iPhone Duo from next month. And the iPhone 16 is still on the shelf as well, so that's a 16, a 17 and an 18 all on sale at the same time, an Air with no number, a Duo with no number, and next year a rumoured 20th anniversary phone that people are already calling the Ultra. Come on. It's getting silly. I spend half my week explaining to people which iPhone they should buy and I can see it getting harder, not easier.

Now, I know the obvious objection, because I've made it to myself. Apple is perfectly happy putting numbers on things. We just had AirPods 5, Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. Fine. But those are one product with one line each. The iPhone is a family of six about to become seven, and a number on a family stops telling you anything useful.

Apple already did this to the iPad

The thing that convinces me is the iPad, because Apple has already done exactly this and nobody noticed. The last iPads with a number actually in the name were the iPad Air 2 back in 2014 and the iPad mini 4 the year after. After that it became iPad Air (3rd generation) in the small print and just "iPad Air" in the shop. People still say "iPad 9" to me. Apple never did. And these days, if you go and look at the spec pages, it's the chip in brackets that tells the generations apart: iPad Pro (M4), iPad mini (A17 Pro). Nobody says that out loud either. You buy the new iPad Pro and get on with your life. The Mac has worked like that forever. The iPhone is the odd one out, and it's the one with the most models, so it's the one that needs sorting.

Apple has bent the numbers before

There's precedent on the iPhone itself, too, which people forget. 2017, Apple goes from the iPhone 8 straight to the iPhone X, skips 9 completely, does XS and XR the year after, and then two years later wanders back to numbers with the 11 as if none of it happened. The numbering was never sacred. It was convenient. I don't think it's convenient any more.

Two events next year, and why that matters

This is where the rumours come in, and please read this bit as rumour and nothing more. The current talk is that 2027 will be the first year Apple splits the main lineup across two launches: an iPhone 18, an 18e and a second Air in the spring, and the Pro models keeping September. Apple has done spring iPhones before, mind. The first SE had its own March event in 2016 and the third SE had one in 2022. But those were budget one-offs. Moving a whole tier of the range into the spring would be new, and it opens a door.

What I think actually happens

Here's my version. In the spring there's no straight follow-up to the iPhone 17. The e gets its upgrade and quietly becomes the phone most people buy at the affordable end, alongside the Air, and both keep a number for now, because Apple has literally just launched the 18 Pro with one and dropping it six months later would look daft. Then September 2027, twenty years of iPhone, the perfect excuse, and Apple does the rename in classic Apple style. The next Duo, the next Pro and the anniversary Ultra turn up with no numbers at all. Spring becomes the home of the everyday phone and the Air. September is for the expensive ones.

I'd go further, actually. I think Pro Max goes as a name, because the only real difference is the size of the screen, and Apple already sells a MacBook Pro in two sizes and an iPad Pro in two sizes without the bigger one needing its own name. So it's just iPhone Pro, in whichever size you want. And I think the e could go as well. Once the numbers are gone the affordable iPhone doesn't need a letter to explain itself. It's just iPhone, the same way the entry-level iPad is just iPad.

Which would leave, by the end of next year, something as short as this: iPhone, iPhone Air, iPhone Pro, iPhone Duo, iPhone Ultra. Five names, each one telling you what kind of phone it is. The chip does the job the number used to do, iPhone Pro (A21 Pro) and so on, and Apple can carry on like that for as long as it likes without ever having to say "42" on a stage.

One more thing I'm watching

One more, while I'm here. I also think we'll get a smaller Air eventually, somewhere around 5.8 inches, for the people who never wanted a big phone in the first place. When, I've no idea, and it's not part of this prediction. But it's a when, not an if, if you ask me.

That's the call, then. Numbers gone by the end of 2027. I've been wrong before and I'll come back and say so if I'm wrong again, but I'd rather have it in writing now than say "I told you so" with nothing to point at. Tell me what you think. Especially if you think I'm wrong.