iPhone 9 may have just been certified in China

Apple is set to announce new iPhone models on September 12 and ahead of that the phones would need to be certified by various organizations around the world, one of which may have just certified the 6.1-inch iPhone 9.

Spotted by HowToTechNaija, two Apple devices have passed through TENAA (a Chinese certification body). They’re not named, instead bearing the codenames A1920 and A1921, but this close to the launch of new iPhones it’s very likely that that’s what these are.

However, we’re expecting to see three new iPhone models – a 6.1-inch LCD model at the bottom end, likely dubbed the iPhone 9, then 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch OLED phones, which could be called the iPhone XS or iPhone 11 and iPhone XS Plus or iPhone 11 Plus.

One of the three

HowToTechNaija claims that the iPhone 9 specifically has been linked to the A19 model number in the past, though it’s not clear when and why, so don’t be surprised if this is instead the iPhone XS or iPhone XS Plus.

They are codenames we’ve seen before though, as exactly those names (along with 9 others) passed through the EEC (Eurasian Economic Database) back in April.

At the time we theorized that they might be variants of the iPhone SE 2, but since then it’s become clear that we probably won’t get a new ‘budget’ iPhone this year, so the iPhone 9 or iPhone XS/iPhone XS Plus is our best guess.

The TENAA listing doesn’t tell us anything else about the phone, but it’s one more piece of evidence that new iPhone models are almost here, if any more evidence was needed.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.