It seems like Apple decided to discontinue the iPhone SE series. This information comes from Ming-Chi Kuo, a well-known tipster. The iPhone SE 4 was reportedly in Apple’s plans for 2024, but that won’t happen, it seems.
The iPhone SE series gets discontinued by Apple, it seems
The tipster shared the info in a Medium post, where he said that Apple informed its supply chain partners that it plans to cancel next year’s iPhone SE. Apple was allegedly planning for the iPhone SE 4 to be a test bed for its new modem chip aka an in-house baseband chip.
If everything went according to plan, we would have seen that same chip in the iPhone 16 series later that year. This could mean Apple will stick with Qualcomm’s baseband chip for the iPhone 16 series.
As a reminder, the iPhone SE 4 was expected to utilize the iPhone XR’s design. So Apple was finally expected to retire the iPhone 8 design, for good. It seems like we’ll never see it happen, though, at least based on this new rumor.
The iPhone 13 Mini & iPhone SE 3 didn’t sell well enough
The iPhone SE 3 reportedly didn’t sell all that well for the company. Apple actually ditched the ‘Mini’ series for that same reason. The iPhone 12 Mini and 13 Mini didn’t really meet Apple’s sales expectations.
The iPhone SE 3 is in the same situation, and that’s not exactly surprising. The phone may have been quite affordable, but its design is extremely old at this point, not to mention that it had other deficiencies compared to modern smartphones.
The iPhone SE 3 is well-known for its lackluster battery life, and on top of that, Apple didn’t even include the night mode for the camera in that phone, even though it could’ve, thanks to the processor.
It seems like Apple will stick with its main lineup from now on, and ditch the ‘SE’ series entirely. This is not an official confirmation, of course, we’ll have to wait and see what will happen.
2023-01-09 15:06:18