We’ve been anticipating the launch of the long-awaited upgrade for the iPhone SE in March; however, a recent rumor, according to Majin Bu, suggests that the fourth-generation iPhone SE could have a different name.
Rather than being dubbed the “iPhone SE (4th generation)”, Apple’s upcoming budget-oriented smartphone may be called the “iPhone 16E” instead. Whatever the naming convention will be, the supposedly-called “iPhone 16E” will be in line with Apple’s latest iPhone 16 lineup, and here’s why.
The iPhone SE was originally introduced back in March 2016, and the first-generation model featured a design that wasbased on the iPhone 5s, yet it featured internals based on the iPhone 6s. Apple discontinued that model, but it reintroduced the “iPhone SE” naming scheme in April 2020 by introducing the second-generation model, which had the design of the iPhone 8, but with internals based on the iPhone 11. Fast forward to March 2022, Apple introduced the third-generation model, which retained the same design as before, but with internals based on the iPhone 13. Since then, there hasn’t been a new model of the iPhone SE, and if you look at today’s iPhone lineup, the iPhone SE has been getting rather long in the tooth in terms of features and technology. Plus, it’s becoming a very bad value that sticks out like a sore thumb.
Apple’s upcoming budget smartphone is expected to bring more modern specs, including:
- a more modern design with a notch based on the iPhone 14
- a larger 6.1-inch OLED display
- Face ID
- USB-C port and potentially MagSafe for charging solutions
- a single 48-megapixel rear camera
- an A18 chip and 8GB of memory to support Apple Intelligence
- Apple’s all-new custom-built 5G modem
These features would bring the budget-oriented smartphone up to par with Apple’s other premium offerings, so dubbing it “iPhone 16E” would better represent the smartphone overall and would mark a major change in Apple’s naming strategy as it would better indicate that this smartphone would be largely based on the iPhone 16 in terms of the system-on-the-chip.
Currently, the iPhone SE starts at $429, but that comes with 64GB of storage, which is a major tech crime for the amount of internal storage for any smartphone. Apple may increase the starting price for the smartphone to justify the more capable hardware specs, so it may come with more storage to start with on the plus side.
