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Apple Aiming to Launch iPhone SE 4 and iPad 11 'By April'

MacTypeOfGuy said:
Most likely won't because Apple wants to move on from the M3 due to manufacturing challenges, and giving M4 to iPad Air would be on par with the iPad Pro, which Apple most likely won't do.
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What manufacturing challenges?

Apple launched iPad mini with A17 Pro. Those chips were brand new from the fab, not old binned chips either.

Apple still hasn't launched M4 MBA either. If there were any "challenges," they would have been first to equip MBA with M4, not Mac mini.
 
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HJM.NL said:
That’s after the mobile world congress in Barcelona where all the mobile phone manufacturers show off their latest and greatest. Don’t think the iPhone SE will turn any heads unless your locked into Apple’s ecosystem that is.
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The SE has never been a leading edge phone. It is always been about mostly current tech an affordable price.
 
jimscard said:
Tariffs are unlikely to be put in place on tech like Apple’s devices. They were talked about as a means of combatting companies like Temu, which undercut American stores by selling direct to consumers using a loophole intended for travelers.
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I’m only listening to what the former and future president of the United States has said about across-the-board tariffs. Something that was reiterated just yesterday.

I know some people have a tendency to not take Trump seriously with the things he says. Or try reinterpreted the things he says. But this is the thing he has said repeatedly months before and now months after the election. And again, he repeated it just yesterday.

As I mentioned though, Tim Cook managed to convince Trump last time to exclude Apple from the previous round of tariffs. And Cook is personally ‘donating’ money to Trump’s inauguration fund for reasons of… ‘unity’. So that might help as well.
 
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Expecting a Spring event with new iPad 11 and Air along with the new iPhone SE sometime in March or April. MacBook Air should be launched this month probably.
 
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You dont launch an iPhone during Chinese New Year. Which means it will have to start picking up production in early Feb. And launch only late Feb or early march at the earliest.
 
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BTW it will be funny if it turned out to be true.
 
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This marketing buzz is so ridiculous- don‘t you feel ashamed Apple?
Compare all the „releases“ of Apple - which are only product refreshes - of the last years to the keynote of Nvidia. Compare that to the true release of Digits, Cosmos (which is groundbreaking but OpenSource). Set this in relation to Thor, the new RTX5090, physical AI and much more.
(For those who haven‘t heard of Digits, a stackable Mac Mini sized supercomputer that fits on your desk - this thing alone blows your mind).

The keynote reminded me of Steve Jobs when he took the stage and had something to say - and he always had one more thing.

When Tim enters the stage you know what’s going to happen, he will present „the best iPhone ever“, but he will only present the iPhone of the last year equipped with a new camera and new CPU (and some crippled Apps, like the Photos App).

Why don‘t you leave Tim and why do you enter the stage at all, if you have nothing to show? But I know, as long as pure marketing buzz is enough to generate money, he will continue.
 
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That's one hell of a sexy back. I would almost buy based on the render alone.
 
Tagbert said:
The SE has never been a leading edge phone. It is always been about mostly current tech an affordable price.
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Well the iPhone E(ntry) maybe affordable when comparing it to other Apple iPhones. It’s certainly isn’t affordable when comparing it to other offerings on speed, camera, ram, storage.
 
JPack said:
What manufacturing challenges?

Apple launched iPad mini with A17 Pro. Those chips were brand new from the fab, not old binned chips either.

Apple still hasn't launched M4 MBA either. If there were any "challenges," they would have been first to equip MBA with M4, not Mac mini.
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How do you know? The iPhone 15 Pro exclusively used A17Pro chips with 6 GPU cores. The iPad Mini uses A17Pro chips with 5 GPU cores. To me that sounds a lot like Apple had a load of binned A17Pro chips with a defective GPU core lying around that they needed to get rid of (plus a load of unused A17Pro chips with 5 GPU cores where they could simply deactivate a core in the firmware).
 
I feel like this could be a future replacement for my 13 mini, should it break beyond repair (along with my heart, obviously). This or whatever that 17 Air will turn out to be because so far that too sounds like a phone that is just about the essentials.
 
kiranmk2 said:
How do you know? The iPhone 15 Pro exclusively used A17Pro chips with 6 GPU cores. The iPad Mini uses A17Pro chips with 5 GPU cores. To me that sounds a lot like Apple had a load of binned A17Pro chips with a defective GPU core lying around that they needed to get rid of (plus a load of unused A17Pro chips with 5 GPU cores where they could simply deactivate a core in the firmware).
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Because the fab dates codes on the A17 Pro SoC used in iPad mini shows mid-2024. Check iFixit for example. Apple is using newly fabbed chips for iPad mini. That puts the binned chips theory out the window.

The binning theory never made sense to anyone with a business or technical background. Apple would have never launched A17 Pro with the current clock and core count if yields were poor. They would have lowered clocks or deleted GPU cores from the start to ensure yields are at least 80%.
 
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Why are people so convinced that a new iPad Air is on the way? The current gen isn’t even 8 months old yet. There is no need for a new model for at least another year.
 
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JPack said:
Because the fab dates codes on the A17 Pro SoC used in iPad mini shows mid-2024. Check iFixit for example. Apple is using newly fabbed chips for iPad mini. That puts the binned chips theory out the window.

The binning theory never made sense to anyone with a business or technical background. Apple would have never launched A17 Pro with the current clock and core count if yields were poor. They would have lowered clocks or deleted GPU cores from the start to ensure yields are at least 80%.
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That is good insight, but does a mid 2024 fab date mean those chips are still being made today? If it had been an October/November 2024 fab date that would be more conclusive.

There are plenty of examples of binning - both in the semiconductor industry and Apple specifically. see: https://www.techspot.com/article/2039-chip-binning/

It is likely that the A18 is also a binned version of the A18 Pro. There may well be some semantics in play here, that Apple doesn't bin, but TSMC does and Apple simply contracts TSMC to provide so many 5 core GPUs and so many 6 core GPUs, but I am certain that this contract (and the pricing) will be based on an understanding that the 5 core GPUs will be either binned, or have a core deactivated.

If you are starting a new process, you will have lower yields than a mature process. Surely anyone (business or technical) would see the benefit of realising profit from some of the chips with minor defects if possible?
 
kiranmk2 said:
That is good insight, but does a mid 2024 fab date mean those chips are still being made today? If it had been an October/November 2024 fab date that would be more conclusive.

There are plenty of examples of binning - both in the semiconductor industry and Apple specifically. see: https://www.techspot.com/article/2039-chip-binning/

It is likely that the A18 is also a binned version of the A18 Pro. There may well be some semantics in play here, that Apple doesn't bin, but TSMC does and Apple simply contracts TSMC to provide so many 5 core GPUs and so many 6 core GPUs, but I am certain that this contract (and the pricing) will be based on an understanding that the 5 core GPUs will be either binned, or have a core deactivated.

If you are starting a new process, you will have lower yields than a mature process. Surely anyone (business or technical) would see the benefit of realising profit from some of the chips with minor defects if possible?
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It can’t be October or November. The N3 chips need at least 90 days to cycle through the fab process.
 
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