It’s not each February we get an iPhone announcement–in truth, it’s hardly ever February. However hardly ever doesn’t imply by no means, and on Wednesday, Apple took the wraps off the iPhone 16e, a brand new mannequin that brings cutting-edge internals to an older kind issue.
However tempted as you may be to name the 16e the fourth-generation iPhone SE, this new mannequin doesn’t exactly match the mould. For one factor, that is the primary time Apple is utilizing this new lower-end iPhone to launch a model new piece of expertise. For an additional, this lower-cost iPhone isn’t precisely as low value as its predecessors.
Suffice it to say, the iPhone 16e isn’t your mother and father’ iPhone SE. However after nearly a decade of these fashions, Apple appears to be taking a barely completely different tack this time round.
What’s in a letter?
The iPhone SE’s title dates again to its first era, launched in 2016. It each hearkened again to an earlier age–the basic Macintosh SE from the late Nineteen Eighties–in addition to paving the way in which for later merchandise with the identical moniker, such because the Apple Watch SE.
Whereas it’s a part of the iPhone 16 lineup, the iPhone 16e could be very completely different from its brethren.
Apple
However with iPhone 16e, Apple’s returning to a naming model it hasn’t actually used since a minimum of 2018’s iPhone XS/XR fashions if not all the way in which again to the iPhone 6s in 2015. Whereas Apple’s naming schemes are sometimes the factor of tea leaves and Kremlinology, it’s exhausting to not marvel if there’s one thing to be divined right here. I’m involved much less with the “e” (which, I’m positive, doesn’t stand for anybody factor, although Apple would in all probability be lots glad if it was interpreted as for “effectivity”) than with using “16.”
In any case, nothing particularly calls this out as an iPhone 16—it doesn’t even resemble the remainder of the 16 line, given its use of a notched show moderately than the Dynamic Island, the shortage of a Digital camera Management button, and the truth that its dimensions are precisely these of the iPhone 14. (A mannequin that Apple continued to promote proper up till the 16e’s announcement, which additionally occurs to conveniently make it the oldest mannequin for which the corporate probably nonetheless had a working manufacturing line.)
Does Apple tying this to the 16 lineup presage extra frequent updates for this lower-end cellphone? Prior to now, the iPhone SE was up to date solely each few years. However maybe calling it the iPhone 16e ought to have us anticipating an iPhone 17e subsequent winter? Or, on the very least, an iPhone 18e two years therefore? It might, largely, rely on simply how briskly the corporate’s future Apple Intelligence options are anticipated to outrun the A18 chip on which the 16e is predicated.
Worth over funds
Prior to now, the iPhone SE has been Apple’s lower-cost various. Discover I don’t say “low-cost” or “cheap.” Whereas the first- and second-generation iPhone SE fashions each debuted at $399, the third-generation jumped up barely to $429. The iPhone 16e, by comparability, begins at $599. That’s markedly larger–maybe another excuse that Apple could have elected to not proceed the SE title, lest shoppers anticipate it to hold an identical price ticket.
Granted, the 16e has numerous elements that little doubt make it dearer to provide, not least of all its considerably bigger OLED display screen and twice the storage capability of the third-generation SE (and you understand how Apple likes to command a value premium for its storage tiers). In consequence, it’s successfully about midway between the price of these authentic SE fashions and the iPhone 14 on which it’s primarily based. It’s additionally simply $100 cheaper than the value Apple often makes use of for its earlier yr’s cellphone (the iPhone 15, at present, which fits for $699), serving to the corporate proceed its time-honored technique of staking out value factors at each $100 increment.
The iPhone 15 continues to be out there however it can not run Apple Intelligence.
David Worth / Foundry
However it additionally signifies that the corporate is leaving a whole lot of pricing room beneath the 16e. Might that herald older mannequin telephones being bought at even decrease costs? Or a value drop in some subsequent yr of the 16e’s availability? In relation to Apple, the good wager is that the corporate’s by no means going to go away cash on the desk. If Apple’s charging an much more costly value for this cellphone, that’s as a result of it is aware of the market pays for it. There could also be cheaper Android telephones for many who are purely shopping for on value, however Apple additionally is aware of that the people who find themselves going to purchase an iPhone are keen to pay for it, so why not cost extra?
C is for mobile
One main component that makes the 16e stand aside from the SE fashions that preceded it’s the truth that Apple is utilizing the cellphone as a testbed for a serious {hardware} change: the inclusion of its personal wi-fi mobile chip, which it’s dubbed the C1.
Rumors of an Apple-built modem have sprung everlasting for years; the firm purchased Intel’s modem enterprise for a cool billion greater than half a decade in the past, and there’s been loads of expectation that the corporate deliberate to construct its personal radio–in any case, Apple likes to management its core applied sciences–however studies steered improvement bumped into repeated challenges. Modem expertise is notoriously difficult, with a number of networks and frequency bands the world over, loads of edge instances, and a low tolerance for failure.
Deploying the C1 within the 16e first permits the corporate to cowl a number of bases: first, the mannequin caters to a extra price-sensitive and thus maybe much less performance-sensitive market that presumably gained’t be as upset if the chip will not be as aggressive with choices from different producers; second, the 16e will probably promote in decrease volumes than newer fashions this fall, permitting Apple to ramp up manufacturing extra slowly; and third, it permits the corporate to get forward of any bugs or flaws that might impede a bigger roll-out, both with this fall’s fashions or subsequent yr.
Apple’s stated little concerning the C1, apart from utilizing its personal chip allowed it to wring extra battery life out of the 16e, which is precisely the sort of metric that prospects of those lower-cost units are more likely to worth–the identical motive you’ll see Apple touting the sturdiness of the cellphone’s aluminum enclosure and Ceramic Defend glass. In any case, this stuff must final till at least the iPhone 17e.