A leaked iOS 11 Golden Master candidate may have just given us a viable answer to one of the biggest unknowns in terms of how Apple might market this year’s upcoming iPhones.
Having sifted through the iOS GM code, developer Steve Troughton-Smithhas dug upreferences to potential official names for the phones Apple will unveil on Tuesday.
Specifically, code strings mention“iPhone 8”,“iPhone 8 Plus”and“iPhone X”.
“Maybe the DeviceTree is lying about the marketing name, maybe not. But right now, D22 thinks it is iPhone X, so that’s good enough for me,” hewrotein a separate tweet.
“D22” is a code-name for Apple’s top-tier iPhone model with a bezel-less display.
The latest findings corroborate a report from Dutch site iCulture,citinga reliable carrier source, that the flagship OLED iPhone would get called iPhone X, with the iterative updates to the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models respectively named iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
9to5Macsuggestedthat the OLED-iPhone could be branded as “iPhone Edition,” but that likely won’t be the case because the leaked iOS 11 firmware fails to reference that marketing name.
I truly feel for the apple team that busted their asses off for a few minutes in the spotlight, all taken away from them, on the web :s
— Poy (@osxusr)July 20, 2025
I think it’s a wise decision to not only use the special naming to mark 10 years of the iPhone, but also eschew the S-branding which has become a bit long in the tooth now.
To many folks, S-branding has always suggested a modest upgrade.
From a marketing standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to advertise iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus as iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus to suggest they’re not at all iterative.
The bigger question to ask here is whether Apple is retiring S-branding for good. And if so, will next year’s phones be named “iPhone 9”, “iPhone 9 Plus” and “iPhone XI”?
In my opinion, 2018 phones and subsequent models should be named “iPhone”, “iPhone Plus” and “iPhone X” as Apple does with Macs—you’d say you bought a 2020 iPhone, for example.
What do you think? Could this be a one-off move on Apple’s part or are we witnessing a bigger change in iPhone branding? As always, leave your comments below.
