iPhone SE 4: a launch in the hot seat

The pace of renewal of iPhone SE, the most affordable smartphones in Apple’s catalog, is slower than that of standard iPhones. Apple unveils the new version every two years, the latest device being the iPhone SE 2022, the third of the name and still featuring the design of the iPhone 8. Since then, information leaks about its successor are multiplying, logically counting on a release at the beginning of 2024.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, always very aware of Apple’s little secrets, reports for his part that the mass production of this iPhone SE 4, initially planned for 2024, would be postponed at best, at worst… cancelled. According to him, this hypothesis is explained by the “invariably lower-than-expected shipments of entry-level and mid-range iPhones”, namely the SE 2022, Mini models – which were not entitled to a generation 14 – and even the iPhone 14 Plus. Postponing or even canceling the launch of the iPhone SE 4 would thus be part of a policy of economic rationalization, in an unfavorable economic context in 2023, accentuated by the high cost of the large screen replacing the small panel of the previous iPhone SE.

The Cupertino company will have every opportunity to review its plans by 2024, a year which will also see the transition from Lightning charging to USB-C, according to European Commission directives. This would not be the only change for the iPhone SE 4, which is currently expected to adopt the design of the iPhone XR or iPhone 11, and therefore benefit from a 6.1-inch panel. instead of the 4.7 inches of the iPhone SE 2022. It would lack the Face ID facial recognition functionality, replaced not by a Touch ID button, but by a fingerprint reader probably located on its edge.