As anticipated, Apple revealed the long-awaited iPhone SE refresh Tuesday. The fourth technology machine arrives three years after the final main replace to the budget-minded smartphone. This one arrives with a twist, nevertheless. The SE branding has been dropped to maintain the machine extra inline with the corporate’s flagships. The brand new iPhone 6e begins at $599 and can start delivery February 28.
Apple Intelligence is the iPhone maker’s reply to choices like OpenAI ChatGPT and Google Gemini. It options small fashions that may run regionally on-device, to supply textual content summaries, write letters, and generate photographs.
The 16e is now a part of an unique group — together with the remainder of the iPhone 16 line and iPhone 15 Professional — of handsets able to working Apple Intelligence. That’s thanks, partially, to the addition of an A18 processor. That’s the identical in-house chip discovered throughout the flagship iPhone 16 line.
The brand new handset can also be the primary to identify Apple’s personal in-house modem, the Apple C1. The addition arrives as the corporate continues to much less its dependence on chipmakers like Qualcomm and Intel, in favor of silicon constructed particularly for its gadgets.
Because it shifts to a extra up to date design, the iPhone 16e ditches the Contact ID residence button, in favor of Face ID, whereas bringing again the iPhone X’s digital camera notch. The Lightning port can also be gone, in favor of USB-C, as the corporate standardizes the connector throughout its {hardware} gadgets.
The handset sports activities a 6.1-inch OLED show and “the most effective battery life ever on a 6.1-inch iPhone,” per Apple. It notes that the machine delivers as much as 12 hours extra life on a cost than earlier SEs, a truth due in no small half to the A18.
It arrives at a pivotal time for Apple. The corporate’s market share lately slipped 11% in China, certainly one of its most consequential markets. A number of issues are at play right here, together with the rise of Huawei and different home cellphone makers, coupled with the truth that Apple Intelligence continues to be not accessible in mainland China.
Apple has reportedly had conversations with Tencent and ByteDance in an effort to convey a localized model its generative AI providing to China. Extra lately, phrase has emerged that the corporate has partnered with Alibaba as its native generative AI companion.
The unique iPhone SE, which launched in 2016, has been a powerful vendor for Apple in each China and India, the numbers one and two smartphone markets, respectively. Not like the annual flagship iPhone launch, nevertheless, the SE’s launch schedule has been irregular, with subsequent releases in 2020, 2022, and now 2025. Whereas the $599 price ticket marks a $100 premium over the past final SE, the extra state-of-the-art finances handset ought to assist the corporate regain misplaced floor in these markets.
Pre-orders for the handset open Friday, February 21. The machine begins delivery precisely one week later.
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