John Gruber:

Here’s why I think an “11 / 11 Pro / 11 Pro Max” naming scheme makes perfect sense. First, I hate Roman numerals with an irrational passion, so I’m not even going to get into the idea that Apple might have even considered “iPhone XI”. Just no.

And, on the suggested dropping of the 11, leaving iPhone, iPhone Pro, and iPhone Pro Max:

In the abstract, such a naming strategy would be better. It would match Apple’s other product lineups — MacBooks and iPads — where higher priced models are Pro and lower priced ones are not. MacBook Pros and iPad Pros don’t get numbered sequentially by product generation. When new ones come out, they’re just called “MacBook Pro” and “iPad Pro” and Apple uses model years (e.g. “late 2019”) to specify exact models in support documentation — but never in advertising or product packaging.

Read the whole thing. To me, this is one of the most compelling storylines of next week’s event. Where is Apple heading on branding? Will the Mac, iPad, and iPhone branding schemes converge?

And this does raise one more question for me:

What if Apple does ship an iPhone SE update in the Spring? How does that fit into the overall scheme?

iPhone mini?