Silver and copper halides generally display an abrupt (first-order) transition to the superionic state. However, powder diffraction studies and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of AgI under hydrostatic pressure both indicate that a continuous superionic transition occurs on heating. The gradual onset of the highly conducting state is accompanied by an increasing fraction of dynamic Frenkel defects, a peak in the specific heat and anomalous behavior of the lattice expansion. Similar methods...