The iPhone SE has been long overdue for an update as it features an aging design with thick top/bottom bezels and a Home button, making the SE stand out like a sore thumb compared to all of its higher-end models with their all-screen designs. We’ve now had reports that Apple is going to significantly update its budget-oriented iPhone next year. Additionally, it’s very likely that the 4th generation SE will have a boost in the RAM spec from 4GB of RAM in the current iteration to 8GB of RAM. That increase to that amount of RAM will be a requirement in order to support Apple’s upcoming Apple Intelligence features, which will make their debut later in the fall with iOS 18.1.
If we take a look at all the Apple devices that will support Apple Intelligence, what does each product have in common? They all feature at least 8GB of RAM. It’s still worth pointing out that the current regular iPhone 15 models have 6GB of RAM, so they won’t support Apple Intelligence. Only the iPhone 15 Pro models will support Apple Intelligence at this point, but that will likely change when Apple introduces the iPhone 16 lineup, where both the regular and Pro models will come with at least 8GB of RAM.
Every year when Apple introduces the new iPhone models, the company always keeps last year’s regular iPhone models at lower price points, so Apple will certainly continue to sell both the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus and reduce those price points by $100 (USD). We won’t see the next iPhone SE at next month’s Apple Event, but we’ll see it debut around the spring of 2025 since Apple introduces new models of the iPhone SE in the spring timeframe.
However, if the next iPhone SE supports Apple Intelligence, this would put the regular iPhone 15 models in an odd spot because those phones don’t support Apple Intelligence even though they’d still be positioned above the new SE. Thisshouldn’t come as a huge deal since the iPhone SE is always in its own category that’s distinct from the previous/current mainstream/flagship models where the SE is better in some areas than last year’s regular models (such as the SE having a more modern chip) but worse in some areas than last year’s regular models (the upcoming SE is expected to still feature the notch instead of the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 15).
Speaking of details, other specs we can expect for the iPhone SE 4 are an all-modern design based on the iPhone 14, Face ID, a USB-C port, an Action button, an A18 chip, and a larger 6.1-inch OLED display. Apple is expected to kick off mass production of the smartphone this October with the launch set in the spring timeframe.
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