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Apple Denies Speculation Surrounding iPhone 16e's Lack of MagSafe
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Many of the numerous articles on Macrumors that have covered the 16e have listed many or all of its missing or downgraded features, so you can refer to those articles for the details. But among the major items that many people who have been SE users might care about (compared to things most of them don't, like a slightly slower processor, slightly slower wifi, etc.), are lower brightness, making the display not as visible outdoors on sunny days, and no ultrawideband chip for precision finding Apple items, Airdrop, keyless entry, etc.
Serious, it saves them .00002 Pennie’s/device…this why, no Econ degree required.
😂 SE crowd don’t care about fast processor speed or AirDrop or keyless entry or modem speed. They do care about Battery 🔋 life and most bang for there buck and that is just what the 16e offers exactly.
Yes, I did mention that the SE crowd doesn't care about slightly slower processor, etc. speed. As for Airdrop, etc., I think you're assuming they don't care about the other features. Removing the Magsafe ring to get a tiny bit more space in the iPhone housing wasn't a major factor in giving the 16e its long battery life--it was the introduction of the C1 modem chip, which is a lot more power-efficient than the previous modem chip.
Thing is, you can still use MagSafe with the 16e if you buy a MagSafe case. So the option is certainly there.
The 16e even has super fast 29w charging and that’s more than the SE crowd has ever asked for and more than the 15w MagSafe would be. They get more bang for their buck!
to me this is a phone for people who aren’t heavy in the apple ecosystem. like half the older people i know, they aren’t buying magsafe chargers and airtags anyway and a lower cost iphone that still looks modern is the one they’ll choose.
Another thing is that people, especially people with very little technical knowledge, usually buy what they are familiar with.
If someone has had the iPhone SE for five years, they probably aren’t going to go out and purchase a $150 Galaxy, even if it has a 500 megapixel camera and a 240 Hz display with 64GB of RAM and 8TB.
That all goes in one ear and out the other.
This kind of customer loyalty mainly exists with Apple not just because of the ecosystem, but also because pretty much every iPhone looks and acts 95% the same. If you’ve used any modern iOS version you know exactly what to expect.
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I guess the way Apple looks at it, is that no SE model had Magsafe, but only Qi charging at half the power/speed, and no SE had the Ultra Wideband chip either, and enough people still bought the SE series knowing these weren't included, so since the 16e is the replacement for the SE series, it doesn't "need" those things either. Some of us see "16" now being part of the model number and think, "Well if it's a 16, why is it lacking these things that the 16 models have had for years?", without considering its lineage still puts it somewhere between an SE and a 16.
It makes sense for Apple to have carried over, from the SE to the 16e, some of the differentiation in its feature set, except Apple priced the 16e so much higher than the SE series that it loses its main feature of being a sort of low-cost iPhone. Now it's just "lower cost than the other iPhones". I know Apple upgraded a big swathe of features compared to the SE, so that's important and it increases the cost to build compared to the SE, but I think it would have been more appealing with a price increase about half of what it got. But as many people have pointed out, it'll be available for less than its retail price from many outlets, including cellular providers who will sort of give it away for free.
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29 watts must be only by plugging it into a USB-C charger, not wireless. Apple's online spec sheet for the 16e doesn't say much about any of its charging capabilities except "Up to 50% charge in 30 minutes with 20W adapter or higher paired with USB‑C charging cable", and for wireless charging it says just "Qi", which is 7.5 watts, same as the SE series, instead of Qi2 at 15 watts. Magsafe charging for the entire iPhone 16 series is currently at 25 watts. But all of that is moot if you don't want or need fast wireless charging.
Some people feel, but with only a little evidence, that their iPhone's battery might last longer if it's charged through USB-C, due to the waste heat generated during wireless charging that might degrade the battery, so USB-C charging isn't a bad idea, but the real numbers specifically for the iPhone are hard to come by. I've been exclusively using Magsafe to charge my iPhone 15 Pro Max since I got it almost exactly a year ago, largely because I wanted to have some real-world info on possible degradation by Magsafe, and now my 15PM's battery's maximum capacity, after 201 full charging cycles, is down to 90%, which doesn't sound great to me, so now that I'm in the process of swapping it for a 16 Pro Max, I might charge the new phone using USB-C (at least most of the time) and see what the impact is on its battery after a year.
No MagSafe? No thanks. DOA as far as I'm concerned. Those magnets must be quite expensive.
Apple has confirmed that its custom-designed C1 modem in the iPhone 16e has nothing to do with the device's lack of MagSafe support, according to Macworld.
Following the launch of the iPhone 16e, there was some speculation online about how MagSafe magnets might have interfered with the C1 modem's cellular connectivity performance, and this was considered to be a potential reason for the device not supporting MagSafe. But, that explanation is not true, according to Apple.
From the report:A well-known iPhone case maker told MacRumors that it completed testing that confirmed MagSafe cases do not impact the C1 modem's performance.
So, why does the iPhone 16e lack MagSafe? Apple has not disclosed its actual reasoning, but we would wager that it simply comes down to pricing considerations.
iPhone 16e pre-ordering started today, and the device launches Friday, February 28.
Article Link: Apple Denies Speculation Surrounding iPhone 16e's Lack of MagSafe
Inflation also has a role in the 16e price increase too. Everything is just Higher Man. Eggs higher, groceries higher, homes higher and cars are higher all due to inflation. So thank Apple 🍎 for trying to give everything to you for that price with the only thing missing is MagSafe, but you still can get MagSafe with a case, go figure.
Over the years Apple 🍎 has increased the price of the iPhone 📱
iPhone 16e Supports USB-C Fast Charging up to 29W, Based on Chinese Regulatory Filing
The iPhone 16e reportedly supports USB-C fast charging up to 29W, according to a regulatory filing published in China (via MySmartPrice). If...
www.macrumors.com
I doubt there's anything dumb about it:
If you buy a iPhone 16e Apple makes a killing because of how aggressively low spec'ed it is altogether while still costing $599.
If you don't buy then it's probably because the 16e's low value/$ worked to make you think iPhones 16 and 16 Pro are incredible value/$ at $799 and $999, respectively. Which they are in this very specific context of the current 2025 iPhone line-up.
Or it'll make you think about getting a 15, 15 Pro, or 13.
Really, unless you don't buy any iPhone, Apple wins in every scenario.
Like every aggressively low-priced car, airplane ticket, computer, etc., they are rarely a a great value/$ even if the total cost is low. Or they'll have one or several major caveats.
But the lower price gets you "in the door" and has you thinking about the line-up of products, has you comparing and contrasting, going deeply into each detail, maybe looking up reviews for every individual product, and so on.
Will being more familiar with Apple's products force you to buy one of them? Of course not. But I guarantee you that the more exposure Apple can get for any of its products, the higher the sales numbers will be.
Look at this thread and others: Just on macrumors, thousands of people have compared the specs and prices and discussed the values of the different iPhones.
That's one huge win for 16e even though it's not even out yet.
Of course.
I think 16e would be around $499-$549 without the tariffs.
Kinda crazy to see whether Apple gets forced to move more production to the U.S. or if keeping it's production abroad and paying the tariffs is better.
Certainly seems like one very prominent but unreliable source thinks Cook is moving a lot of production to the U.S. to avoid being "in the tariffs": https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/oth...trump-as-tariffs-threaten-iphones/ar-AA1ztpbW
It's going to be crazy to see what will happen to Apple's prices over the next year. 😟
Yep, except that was what Jobs said when the original phone was released. "You choose your needed performance (RAM, CPU, Battery Size), but all phones have the same features." But ivy League marketing knows better than the most celebrated tech innovator in the world.
Exactly.
Pretty much everyone agreed that SE 1st Gen was a great value at its price despite having many downgrades compared to iPhones 6S/6S Plus.
SE 2020 and SE 2022 weren’t quite as good a value. But prices were kept low and accessible at $399 and $429, respectively, which made them decent value despite looking very outdated.
But I’m seeing almost nothing but complaints about the value of 16e:
You’re not getting an iPhone 14 with a few upgrades. That would be easy to grasp.
You’re getting an iPhone 14 with a mix of upgrades but just as many downgrades compared to iPhones 12-16.
Like, iPhone 16e doesn’t even have the U1 chip that the mid-tier iPhone 11 introduced. You don’t get any UWB chip at all.
No dual cameras.
No MagSafe.
No Wi-Fi 7.
No Qi2.
No Dynamic Island.
Downgrades to 5G connectivity.
No premium or exciting exterior. Just black and white.
The only big arguments for 16e is its iPhone 14 OLED display, A18, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, (maybe) the C1 chip, (maybe) Action Button, and its battery life.
But, considering the discounts many carriers and stores already offer on iPhones 15 and 16, I simply can’t see how iPhone 16e is $599 and not $499-$549.
Add to that how Apple Intelligence is still rolling out over the next 1-2 years, I feel like the “but you don’t get AI om iPhones 15 and older” argument falls flat.
AI is only a minor sales argument as we have no idea when it’ll get finished or if it’ll ever get as good as Apple has promised.
16e is a dud at $599. No need for special knowledge or comprehension skills to grasp that.
My argument is that those features that Apple left out (MagSafe, UWB) should be part of the BOM. For all their iPhones going forward. MagSafe is being touted an integral part of the Qi2 standard that Apple itself is pushing, but yet when the opportunity to include it in their new entry level iPhone is presented, they whiff, leaving Accessories monies on the table. The UWB and its precision finding is a competitive advantage in selling Watches, AirTags and AirPods along with some of its other functions and anything HomeKit-related, which is a market that Apple supposedly is going to try and enter to increase revenue and market penetration as the entire of HomeKit seems to be a bit of a mish mash.
The argument is Apple is upselling everyone to the iPhone 16, which may or may not be true as they just jacked up the cost $170 over the previous model, which it seems dubious that people are simply going to say, screw it, let’s just spend another $200 on the iPhone 16.
The phone isn’t gimped, hate that word, but it’s an incredibly mediocre value and more of a pricing experiment for Apple. I just think those two extra features would have helped it be a better value for those entry level buyers who are already getting a price hike to boot.
The proof will be in the sales, no matter how any person feels about the price to value ratio it will be the sales. And predict away…forum poster’s prognosticators have been wrong in the past and will continue to be incorrrct.