What on Earth is going on with the iPhone SE proper now? Does anybody know? The analysts definitely do not appear to and it could seem there’s a likelihood that we can’t see a brand new mannequin for a while but. If ever.
It’s that “if ever” half that is most worrying. Apple final refreshed the iPhone SE in 2022 and even then it wasn’t an enormous refresh, a minimum of not externally. We nonetheless had the Home button and we nonetheless had the huge brow. But rumors had an iPhone 14-like mannequin coming, Something that may make the iPhone SE extra fashionable.
Now? Now we’re advised that Apple’s greatest iPhone for the budget-conscious is not on the roadmap for 2024 or 2025. And that sucks.
The iPhone SE 4 really wasn’t
If provide chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is on the cash — and he usually is — the machine that we thought was an iPhone 14-like iPhone SE is not really a cellphone that is going to be offered. Instead, Kuo thinks that it was nothing greater than an engineering pattern designed to check an in-house 5G modem. That signifies that the cellphone that analysts and leakers thought was the iPhone SE 4 won’t ever see the sunshine of day (opens in new tab).
What’s extra, Kup says {that a} refreshed iPhone SE “is not currently part of Apple’s new product planning.” So we’d not be getting a brand new iPhone SE for an additional couple of years.
But when will we get one?
That’s very a lot up within the air.
Apple wants an iPhone SE within the lineup
What made the iPhone SE 4 as we knew it so compelling was how it could give Apple a price range iPhone that did not appear like it was outdated the day it was unboxed. I do know some individuals nonetheless wax lyrical concerning the Home button however, frankly, it is time they moved on. The Home button is gone, or a minimum of it needs to be.
Apple ought to all the time provide a price range iPhone and it should not make individuals use that cellphone in a different way from everybody else within the course of. That means the identical interface and the identical approach of interacting with it. Which, in flip, means swiping as much as shut apps and enter multitasking. It’s simply how iPhones ought to work in 2023.
If Apple would not refresh the iPhone SE with one thing extra fashionable, it is lacking a trick.
If it drops it completely, it is even worse. The iPhone SE at present sells for $429 whereas the subsequent mannequin within the lineup sells for $599. That’s the iPhone 12 and whereas some will say that is a cellphone that is greater than value the additional cash, they’d be lacking the purpose whereas additionally being appropriate.
Sometimes one thing being higher worth would not matter. If individuals are stretching for $429, they only cannot go the additional to iPhone 12 cash. That’s the top of the dialog.
There is likely to be one other approach
If Apple does need to put off the iPhone SE, it might do it and nonetheless provide one thing round that $429 value level. Tim Cook’s Apple does like to maneuver older gadgets down the lineup, so why not preserve doing it?
My suggestion? Ditch the iPhone SE completely. Move the iPhone 12 to its value level, and transfer the whole lot else down on the similar time when the iPhone 15 arrives.
Do that, and the lineup goes iPhone 15, iPhone 14, iPhone 13, and iPhone 12. It’s unwieldy and I’d counsel ditching the 14 and 13 and simply giving the iPhone 12 the iPhone SE title, however that is simply me.
Whatever Apple does, it wants an iPhone whose value begins with a 4. Whatever it calls it is likely to be unimportant, however I do know this — it higher not have a Home button for for much longer.
