These are definitely specs and features I could get behind if I were to go back to a smaller and more affordable range again.
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Three Biggest Questions About the iPhone SE 4
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iForgotten
macrumors newbie
It's definitely going to be an XR with an updated processor. Maybe take out FaceID and put a fingerprint scanner in the side button?
The older 11 (no longer available via Apple but still sold new by third party retailers in the UK) is almost at price parity with the SE 2022 in the UK (thanks to the recent FX/inflationary price bumps by Apple). The main trade offs to compare at that point:
6.1" display vs 4.7" display
FaceID vs Touch ID
Ultrawide camera vs no ultra wide camera
A13 vs A15 CPU
4G vs 5G
Decent Battery Life vs allegedly poorer battery life (could be 5G related, or size of the unit)
And price wise £428 get you a 64Gb iPhone 11 £449 for the 64Gb iPhone SE 2022 at Argos so it's actually almost £20 cheaper per storage tier although the iPhone 11 only has 64/128Gb storage variants - the SE 2022 goes to 256Gb.
Want an OLED display?
The 11 Pro 64Gb seems to be on clearance for £528
I'm not sure what the difference is between the 11 and Xr and wouldn't put it past Apple to go to the extra mile to develop and put TouchID into a body shell that didn't have it in the first place (I believe the 10.9" iPad Air 4 is the precedent there)
6.1" display vs 4.7" display
FaceID vs Touch ID
Ultrawide camera vs no ultra wide camera
A13 vs A15 CPU
4G vs 5G
Decent Battery Life vs allegedly poorer battery life (could be 5G related, or size of the unit)
And price wise £428 get you a 64Gb iPhone 11 £449 for the 64Gb iPhone SE 2022 at Argos so it's actually almost £20 cheaper per storage tier although the iPhone 11 only has 64/128Gb storage variants - the SE 2022 goes to 256Gb.
Want an OLED display?
The 11 Pro 64Gb seems to be on clearance for £528
I'm not sure what the difference is between the 11 and Xr and wouldn't put it past Apple to go to the extra mile to develop and put TouchID into a body shell that didn't have it in the first place (I believe the 10.9" iPad Air 4 is the precedent there)
now i see it
macrumors G4
Since apparently can’t make up their mind — I’ll do it for them:
Gut out an iPhone 8 Plus, slap in a modern chip with 4-6GB of RAM and launch it! Geezus / talk about constipation
Gut out an iPhone 8 Plus, slap in a modern chip with 4-6GB of RAM and launch it! Geezus / talk about constipation
If Apple have determined that Mini size models didn't sell enough and the 14 Plus was too close in price to the 14 Pro (although that may have served as an enticement to upsell buyers to the 14 Pro) I would suggest that a thicker 13 mini form factor might be interesting.
Imagine something twice as thick and capable of accommodating a better class of camera without a bump. The 14 Pro Max weighs 240g (8.47 ounces) whereas the 13 mini weighs 141g (4.97 ounces) so more room for that better camera and some additional battery so it doesn't look like a poor relation in terms of battery life.
Make it a Pro class phone because of what could be seen as a better camera module, the front facing screen dimension to match the 13 mini but with a thicker case that can accommodate longer battery life and perhaps easier to grip while shooting pictures and video.
Back onto topic though, the thing that budget buyers will be looking for is the screen size before CPU considerations - you see that all over the Android sector, 8 Plus is probably too small in this day and age now.
Imagine something twice as thick and capable of accommodating a better class of camera without a bump. The 14 Pro Max weighs 240g (8.47 ounces) whereas the 13 mini weighs 141g (4.97 ounces) so more room for that better camera and some additional battery so it doesn't look like a poor relation in terms of battery life.
Make it a Pro class phone because of what could be seen as a better camera module, the front facing screen dimension to match the 13 mini but with a thicker case that can accommodate longer battery life and perhaps easier to grip while shooting pictures and video.
Back onto topic though, the thing that budget buyers will be looking for is the screen size before CPU considerations - you see that all over the Android sector, 8 Plus is probably too small in this day and age now.
Bustycat
macrumors 65816
You don’t care about them, and Apple doesn’t care about you either.
Pilot Jones
macrumors 6502a
The Asus Zenfone 9 has gotten some pretty great reviews and is quite a compact phone. Asus flies under the radar a lot compared to other Android companies, but they've always made great bang-for-your-buck devices.
Pilot Jones
macrumors 6502a
I genuinely think there are only 2 possibilities:
Why would they suddenly change up something that saves them money and has been extremely successful already? Makes no sense.
- The iPhone 8 chassis with no changes, a new chip and USB-C for the regulators
- The iPhone XR or 11 chassis with no changes, a new chip and USB-C for the same reason.
Why would they suddenly change up something that saves them money and has been extremely successful already? Makes no sense.
Colpeas
macrumors 6502a
Well i think you answered your own question. Smaller phones are a niche market and the people buying them typically aren’t typically willing to pay premium money. Since they also don’t upgrade as often and creating a smaller version of a full featured phone brings major technical challenges (satisfactory battery life being the greatest), the phone manufacturers (apple included) just aren’t keen on spending r&d money on something that isn’t gonna bring them much profit. Cause if nobody makes a small phone, people will inevitably have to buy a bigger one at some point.
I am a 12 mini user myself and i love the phone (minus battery life, haha), but i also can see why apple chose to not make a 14 mini. Hopefully we’ll se a more compact version of ip15 next year.
I have a 13 Mini and wouldn't mind a slightly larger phone, but 6.1" is just a tad too large.
Maybe 5.7-5.8" would be the Goldilocks space, with slightly more room for content and battery but not yet uncomfortably big. Apple could even recycle the X/XS frame, or come up with something bespoke although I find that beyond unlikely.
Maybe 5.7-5.8" would be the Goldilocks space, with slightly more room for content and battery but not yet uncomfortably big. Apple could even recycle the X/XS frame, or come up with something bespoke although I find that beyond unlikely.
The Zenfone 9 is barely smaller than the standard size iPhone 14 (14.65cm tall vs 14.67cm for the iPhone and 6.81cm wide vs 7.15cm). The key USP for the mini series was that no other phone manufacturer bothered to make phones that small with top specs, with Sony really being the last Android manufacturer to do it until 2018 when they released their final compact phone (XZ2 Compact). There's nowhere for people who want a phone that small to go and it sucks.
Falhófnir
macrumors 603
XR with an A15 or A16 chip and otherwise unchanged seems the most likely to me. Not having the R&D costs of developing a totally new design is a key reason the SE can be so cheap. Unless they pull an iPad 10 and this is a significantly pricier 'SE' slotting in above the existing one.
USB-C is probably going to have to be a thing if we take the USB-C EU directive at face value. It suggests that Apple's entire on-sale phone range will have to charge via USB-C by the end of 2024, I had assumed that on-sale phones could continue until discontinued.
But let's assume instead that the EU mandate demands that all phones on-sale would need to be USB-C connected.
That being the case, Apple only have 2 phone release windows remaining to reorganise their lineup. September 2023 and September 2024.
That now makes it clear that iPhone 15 will have USB-C, it till become the mid range phone when the iPhone 16 comes out in September 2024 and the current iPhone 14 might not even get to become the budget model (the position currently occupied by the iPhone 12) after the 16 is released in 2024.
This makes it possible that in 2024 as the iPhone 16 comes out that the iPhone 14 is simply discontinued and is replaced by a phone that has a USB-C port.
It would be easy to assume that Apple could just engineer a 14c to have a USB-C port with nothing else changed, remember it will have the 5 core GPU A15 CPU.
This would lead me to believe that the SE 2022 gets replaced in 2024 by the 'current' iPhone 15 CPU in a device with a USB-C port. But with that format? I would say there's 3 options:
1. Continue with 8 Bodyshell as per 2022 SE model.
2. Bring back the 8 Plus (5.5 inch screen)
3. Bring back the 11 (6.1 inch screen)
But consider that the SoC in a 2024 SE might end up being better than the SoC in a iPhone 14 which would serve in the tier just above a 2024 SE. I think it might end up being the A16 CPU.
If a process shrink brings battery life improvements to make a small screen SE 2024 viable in the existing 8/SE 2020/SE 2022 body shell though.
And finally, I presume there will be a rush to clear out any lightning phones remaining after the September 2024 product line updates. I'd then assume that bargain hunters might then look towards remaining stocks of the iPhone 14 at that point - 64/128/256 SKUs would be available.
I think a pricier SE would end up being a 14c with a USB-C port as the name suggests. In September 2024 the 14 would have drifted down to become Apple's cheapest non-SE model so with very little re-engineering required Apple can then give the 14 another year of life.
cicalinarrot
macrumors 6502a
Now that's one heartfelt first-world-problem rant.
Apple doesn't make decisions based on "nonsense". Not that I justify everything they make but there's usually some pretty good logic behind it.
If I have to guess some very good reasons for the situation:
1) iPhone 6 form factor (a decade old form factor) is no longer much cheaper than iPhone 11 one. Maybe even pricier, who knows, considering how different it is.
2) Not all SE user want a small form factor, they just want the cheapest iPhone. And the 11 looks more attractive, considering ALL other cheap phones have thin bezels. Don't project your feelings to the rest of the world, maybe they can sell 50% more SEs if they don't LITERALLY look like a phone from 2014. And, see point 1, 11-like parts are probably cheap enough now to justify that.
3) Software development for such a different form factors is a pain in the ass for them and for third party developers.
4) Apple has always been know for forcing the user experience they believe to be better to users. Is this the worst case you can think of? Changing a minor model's design that has been around for 9 years?
5) About the Mini, since developing a custom model that sells less than the main one is expensive... why should it make that much sense, economically, to do it with a cheaper one? The much is sells can't be good news for that if it "steals" potential some buyers of the regular models. How many people, if the Mini didn't exist, just wouldn't buy an iPhone? Think most of them would just spend a hundred extra bucks. So Apple is investing to... lose money. Same for the SE. Many people now would just keep on buying the SE because it's smaller. If it's the same size, some of them could just upgrade to better models, probably.
Maybe all of this is nonsense. Maybe you call "nonsense" all things you don't like.
Moonjumper
macrumors 68030
Even better, use OLED screens that don't have PWM. LCD and OLED can both have PWM. LCD and OLED can both be made without PWM. Pulse Width Modulation is often used as it is the easier and cheaper way to control brightness, and should not be on a premium device.
trhoffmann
macrumors 6502
Nothing new here. These are the same speculations from the previous three (or is it four) SE4 articles.
These are valid points, but by your logic Apple must have very good reasons to not only keep older models around, but also deliberately being lower cost models to market. The reason, I would imagine, is that there are probably markets they simply couldn't reach if they didn't cover the lower price brackets because people simply cannot or will not afford 100-200 local currency more and still want a "new" device.
I'm genuinely curious what improved update and maintenance policies in the Android world will do to Apple. Up until recently, for example, my employer mainly deployed iPhone SE devices (I still got the OG SE when I joined in 2019) and used them until the bitter end of their update window. They're now only giving out some Samsung A model going forward, which I understand they will equally be able to keep around for 4-5 years at lower cost.
JM
macrumors 601
That 48 MP camera zoom to 2x should absolutely be in the next single camera SE: that would be amazing and I thought the exact same thing when I saw the keynote this year for the pro. 😱
JustSomebody12
macrumors 6502
iPhone 11 is gonna be dropped w/ iOS 20, imo:
Apple seems to drop support for the oldest devices once every 2 or 3 years (this enables them not to support the versions which have no left-behind device), which means a cut-out with 18 and 20.
I think they will group the X and 8 with the Xr, and the 11 with the 12.
