The on again/off again iPhone SE 4 is reportedly off again. For at least a couple of years, anyway. Apple reportedly no longer intends to make a new budget iOS handset in 2024.
That’s probably not surprising considering the popularity of the company’s more expensive models.
Whither iPhone SE 4?
The iPhone SE is Apple’s lowest-cost handset. To make a $429 model, the company cuts costs by shoehorning reasonably recent chips inside years-old iPhone designs. The result is a familiar-looking device with decent performance — and a much smaller price tag.
The most recent iteration is 2022’s third-gen iPhone SE. We’ve heard rumors and speculation about a possible replacement, and just a few months ago came word that a fourth-gen model was in development. But now analysts with Barclays say Apple nixed the iPhone SE 4. It’s no longer on the company’s product roadmap for 2024.
The silver lining is that the iPhone SE 3 isn’t going obsolete any time soon.
The SE 4 — whenever it debuts — is expected to be the first in the budget line with an edge-to-edge screen. The current model is nearly the last vestige of the Home button, once a feature of many Apple products.
Multiple reasons to hold off
The Barclays analysts say the iPhone SE 4 would have included Apple’s own 5G modem. The problem is, there’s no such thing — at least not yet. Information leaking out from the Mac-maker shows its efforts to get away from Qualcomm by developing an in-house 5G modem are bombing.
But that’s probably not the only reason for pushing back the product. A surprising buying trend is likely to reduce interest in updating Apple’s cheapest handset. Sales of the iPhone SE 3 trail behind almost every other iOS model. Consumers choose the more expensive devices much more often.
Via: MacRumors
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
