Apple Daily: Next iPhone Event Set for Sept. 9; Next iPhones May Get Animated Wallpapers

Apple has at last announced the date for its next big media event and, well, it's going to take place on the date we've all been saying it was going to take place on for months now. In addition, Apple is said to be bringing some spiffy animated wallpapers to the "iPhone 6s" and "iPhone 6s Plus."

Apple to Hold Next iPhone/Apple TV Event on September 9

And so the rumor mill is right again. Apple sent out invitations this morning stating that, yes, the next Apple media event will be held at 10AM PDT on Wednesday, September 9 at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, where Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple II in 1977. The invitation's message is both simple and vague: "Hey Siri, give us a hint."

In addition, Windows users will be able to join in on the festivities live for the first time ever this year, as the Cupertino company's page for the event notes that you can stream it on September 9 "on a PC with Edge on Windows 10." As usual, of course, you can also watch the event on Apple TV or through the Safari browser on a Mac or iOS device.

There's always a chance Apple could surprise us, but there have been plenty of trustworthy "hints" from the rumor mill that suggest that Apple will at last unveil the so-called iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus at the event. Both devices are expected to be be made from stronger aluminum than their immediate predecessors, and they're expected to feature Force Touch, an improved camera, 2GB of RAM, and an A9 processor.

Apple is also expected to use the event to unveil the next generation of the Apple TV, which is expected to have Siri support (which likely explains the invitation's tagline), its own App Store, a touch-based remote control, and an A8 processor. Apple isn't expected to announce its long-awaited subscription-based streaming TV service at the event, though, as negotiations are supposedly still bogged down.

For a bit of fun, saying "Hey Siri, give me a hint" to Siri does, in fact, reveal a set of customized responses. Unfortunately, the hints are no more helpful than "Well, I hear there's something big happening on September 9" and our personal favorite: "Why don't you check a rumors blog? That's what I do."

Ouch, Siri.

iPhone 6s and 6s Plus May Have Apple Watch-Like Animated Wallpapers

Fittingly enough, the pace of rumors hasn't slowed down even with the next Apple media event on the near horizon. The latest rumor passed along from insider sources to 9to5Mac claims that the so-called iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will feature new animated wallpapers in the style of the "Motion" watch faces for the Apple Watch. Each time a user wakes up his or her phone, they'll be treated to watching the wallpaper dynamically change based on their interactions.

Source: cnBeta

Some of the wallpapers seem based off the static backgrounds that showed up in the beta for iOS 9 earlier in the month, such as smoky clouds with different colors and a school of koi. The koi, in fact, seems to lend some credence to a "leaked" photo of the box for the iPhone 6s Plus that appeared on the Chinese site cnBeta this morning. Some inconsistencies with Apple's earlier iPhone packaging led some commentators to doubt its authenticity, but as the box depicts a koi fish on the front, it could be a way to tie-in the packaging with this new feature.

Dynamic wallpapers already exist to a degree on the current iPhones, but their complexity doesn't come close to matching that of the motion watch faces for the Apple Watch. At the moment, there's no word as to whether we'll get to put the snazzy new wallpapers on older iPhones, but it seems unlikely in light of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus's allegedly better processor and extra RAM. In fact, the static images we saw in the iOS 9 beta might be as close as we get.

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