iPhone SE Plus Postponed Until Second Half of 2021

[MartyvH]

The market simply isn’t there.

Neither is the production process for an updated 4". The means to produce it doesn't exist anymore, sadly. I'm surprised the production process for the Plus is still in a factory somewhere.

 

[I7guy]

nah. they don't have a visionary any more. they just churn out product "updates" that are designed by committee (and not a very good committee). Cook doesn't have the talent to guide with a bold vision and plan like Jobs did - he's a run-of-the-mill rich old businessman just going through the motions.

For somebody going through the motions Apple was in a very good place, pre-covid. Of course, no talent was involved in getting apple there, because Steve left Tim a legacy and anybody with half a brain could of done Tim's job. /s

I'm not saying they can do better - after all, a Jobs or a Musk only comes along once in a generation in any given field (if that).

Tim is a visionary in his own right.

We just got spoiled back in the Jobs days.

Who is we?

Now Apple pursues "thinner and lighter" without any idea WHY they pursue those goals. Jobs got it - the products were designed to fulfill particular functions and user experience in a sublime ('magical") way. I haven't been excited for a new Apple product since 2007.

You're opinion of course. But it doesn't say much if the last product you were excited about was in 2007...the Jobs era.

 

[nickgovier]

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[PickUrPoison]

The original SE had 6S internals. It wasn't older tech. Unless you are arguing that the 6S chassis cost $250 more than the 5S chassis?!

Apple made the original iPhone, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S, 5, 5C, and 5S in sizes that were comfortable to use with one hand. For the 6 they jumped to bigger phones and didn't give people a smaller option. A lot of people still wanted the smaller option. So they made the SE. They marketed it as a smaller option. People loved it for being the smaller option. It really isn't that hard to understand.

It was cheaper, but it was six month old internals in a two year old chassis. The BoM was small by that point and it likely didn't have to cover any R&D costs on the chipset as those were borne by the 6S. If cost was the focus, it would have been easier and probably cheaper to make a 6C, but that experiment began and ended with the lacklustre demand for the 5C.

No it didn’t. It had the A9 and the rear camera of the 6s. Everything else, including the body, the display, front camera, cellular chip, battery and first generation TouchID, was old parts/tech. That’s the way you get to a $349/399 iPhone. It really isn't that hard to understand.

Swapping the rear camera and using the A9 would not have made the SE much more costly to build than the 5s.

Certainly Apple could have made a completely up to date iPhone SE, but it could never have come close to selling for $349/399. The 6s was $649. Making it a little smaller isn’t going to lop off $300 from the selling price.

re: 5c, the 5/5s would have sold 200-250 million by the time the SE came along. So that’s the chassis it makes sense to reuse.

 

[dmelgar]

Is there ANY hope for a SMALLER phone? Is Apple incapable of making a phone with a smaller size, too hard for them?

 

[nickgovier]

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[PickUrPoison]

Apple launched the 5C as a budget option. They had to apologise on an earnings call for massively overestimating demand for the 5C relative to the 5S, which led to oversupply of the former and shortages of the latter.

If you choose to believe they learnt so little from that episode that two years later they tried to do exactly the same thing and launch a phone primarily to target a price point, and the size was just a happy accident, then go right ahead. Nothing I, or Apple, could say will possibly convince you otherwise.

The lesson of the 5C wasn’t that people don’t want less expensive iPhones. Of course people want less expensive iPhones. Apple’s entire iPhone business model has them selling iPhones for less as they hit the second and third year on the market. This year, the iPhone 8 was $449 before they updated it, dropped the price and re-released it as the SE.

And now they’ve got a new budget phone they can sell for a few years at the very attractive price of $399, maybe dropping to $349 around the fall of 2021.

The SE3 will probably be based on the 6.1” iPhone 11, and it’ll probably be priced at about $399. At some point you’ll realize SE doesn’t mean 4.0” iPhone 🤷‍♂️

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I have never owned an iPhone, strictly an Android user but I might be tempted to buy this phone if it has a 6.1" screen and the price is right. I've been using large screen phones for the last 6 yrs and there's no going back to a small screen for me.

 

[Quicksilver867]

EDIT: Reading > me

If this holds true and we DO see a full-screen device with TouchID ability, I'm on it like white on rice.

 

[Locke Cole]

Doesn't make much sense for Apple to release the SE 2nd Gen Plus 1.5 years after the regular non-Plus model. Even a 2 month delay is strange.

I bought an iPhone 11 Pro and returned it, even though the screen is "bigger" it's also narrower. I could see much more with my 8 plus. I would gladly take an 8 plus with 2020 specs.

In addition to having a narrower display, the surface area of the X/XS/11 Pro's 5.8 inch display is actually smaller than the 8+'s 5.5 inch display. Keyboard buttons as well as photos (without zooming in) appear smaller on the X/XS/11 Pro than on the 8+. This was mentioned in a video I stumbled across a while back. Measuring a phone's display size diagonally can be misleading.

Also, the surface area of the XR/11's display is larger than the 8+'s, but not too much. Physically, the XR and 11 are very slightly narrower than the 8+. Their large side bezels further narrows their display. Keyboard buttons as well as photos (without zooming in) do not appear larger on the XR/11 than on the 8+. I tested my 8+'s keyboard and photos app alongside my friend's XR's keyboard and photos app for the comparisons.