Updated Jan.4 with more details of the supposed thinking behind the possible new name.
Apple doesn’t like to be predictable, the company has said in the past. So, we shouldn’t presume that the name for the next version of the most affordable iPhone, likely to arrive in March 2025, would be iPhone SE 4th generation. That’s what’s been expected until now, but a new report says we’ve been wrong all along. And another report has now lent weight to the surprising new name.
I mean, the phone in the works definitely seems to be an iPhone SE, with cut-down specifications to hit a price point lower than any other iPhone. But a new report suggests that we need to call the next phone by an entirely different name and, perhaps, think of it in another way.
“SE4 may be gone… The name may be completely changed to ‘16e’,” according to a Weibo report from Fixed Focus Digital. And there are two sources in agreement here. “Based on what my source has reported, it seems that the new iPhone that Apple will unveil in 2025 will not be called iPhone SE4, but iPhone 16E. It should feature a design similar to the iPhone 14, with an OLED display and an action button. The available colors will be white and black,” according to a post on X from frequent leaker Majin Bu.
So, why on earth would Apple ditch a highly recognizable sub-brand, one that says, “yes, I’m an iPhone but I’m tremendous value”? At first glance, it seems daft.
But maybe there’s a logic here. After all, every previous iPhone SE has slavishly copied the design of an earlier iPhone. The first version looked near-identical to the iPhone 5s, the second-gen was a dead ringer for the iPhone 8 and the third, well, this looked like the iPhone 8 as well.
The differences were all internal, putting the latest-gen chip in the hardware each time.
But this new phone looks like it will take a different route. It’s thought to look like the iPhone 14, which isn’t dissimilar to the iPhone 16 design, at least from the front.
However, this handset will have just one camera, not the two found on the iPhone 14, it seems. It will certainly have a USB-C charging port, which the iPhone 14 did not, and the single camera may have a 48-megapixel sensor, again something the iPhone 14 didn’t match. A new design, then.
In which case, maybe a whole new name is needed. Something that teams it to the latest model could also make it seem appealing. And if, as thought, it is capable of Apple Intelligence, then that could be reason enough for the new naming convention.
Over at 9to5 Mac, Michael Burkhardt has written persuasively about why he thinks iPhone 16E could be the way Apple will go, pointing out that “It’d definitely be the biggest upgrade in the history of iPhone SE,” as he mentions the introduction an OLED screen with Face ID, USB-C port and Apple’s in-house modem.
But the reason he thinks the new branding might come is to do with the price. “Apple currently sells the iPhone 14 for $599, and the iPhone 15 for $699. Yet somehow, a newer phone with components from both of these (plus an even newer chipset) is apparently supposed to cost substantially less?”
His reasoning is that changing the name to 16E could mean there’s less backlash if the price goes up significantly.
I see this, though I suspect Apple will still want the next phone to be a lot cheaper than the iPhone 16 at $799 and, I’d argue, the iPhone 15. The SE or whatever it’s to be called, still needs to have clear blue water between it and the other iPhones available. The SE range has always had the latest chip in a less capable body and that will apply here. My guess is we can expect a price of $599 or less.
