On Wednesday, Apple unveiled the iPhone 16e, the replacement for the iPhone SE. (The iPhone SE and iPhone 14 were removed from the Apple price list.) Here are a few things that strike me about this announcement.
So much for a “low-cost” iPhone. At $599, the iPhone 16e is the cheapest new iPhone you can buy, but its starting price is 40 percent higher than the $429 iPhone SE. There’s been a lot of talk about the iPhone SE being an important phone for Apple to use in emerging markets that are much more price sensitive, but after this move, it’s hard to imagine that such a strategy is still in effect. Using older models and this new 16e, Apple now sells iPhones at $599, $699, $799, $899, $999, and $1199.
Apple has generally resisted raising its base prices despite the recent bout of inflation. But this indicates that, on its most important product, it is unwilling to sacrifice margin just to offer a bargain-basement phone in emerging markets.
I’m also reminded of the classic “good-better-best” marketing strategy. In this case, this might suggest that the iPhone 16e allows Apple to say the iPhone 16 lineup starts at $599… but once they get you in the store, they quickly convince you that the $799 iPhone 16 is a better buy for the money. After all, why buy good when you can buy better?
A curious collection of features. Speaking of the differences between the 16e and the standard 16, they’re fascinating. The iPhone 16 is colorful, but the iPhone 16e comes in only black and white. Both have A18 processors that support Apple Intelligence, but the 16e uses a binned version with one fewer GPU. The 16e has an Action Button but doesn’t have Camera Control. It’s got a 48MP camera, but not the additional ultrawide. Portrait mode, Photographic Styles, and the Ceramic Shield glass coating on the front are all a generation older than on the 16e. And the display is notched, rather than having a Dynamic Island. Most surprisingly, there’s no support for MagSafe, though there is support for Qi wireless charging.
I’m not at all surprised that the iPhone 16e is a combination of some current iPhone features mixed with a bunch of older, cost-saving bits of tech from previous generations. I am, admittedly, a little surprised at some of the details. (What, if anything, prevents the new Photographic Styles from working on the 16e?)
For the most part, though, this is what we expected this phone to be. It has the internals required to run Apple Intelligence and stay “current” for a few years, but it cuts corners by using past-generation tech like the older OLED display with the notch. It also has that great 48MP camera sensor Apple’s been using lately, which is versatile enough to generate some amazing binned shots, true 48MP shots, or center-cropped “2x zoom” optical shots.
Family resemblance? The omission of MagSafe support is a real surprise. Naming this model the iPhone 16e is smart, in that it ties it to the rest of the iPhone family—but then it breaks basic compatibility with a whole set of modern iPhone accessories. I can only assume that some aspect of engineering this model simply precluded the proper placement of magnets for MagSafe, but it means that the 16e is an outlier compared to most of the iPhones Apple has sold in recent years.
What’s in a name? I like the choice of name, honestly. The iPhone SE name didn’t stand for anything, really, and it made it seem like an outlier outside of the flow of time. (Which it sort of was.) Now it’s firmly part of a particular generation of iPhone. It also increases the likelihood that Apple will update this model more regularly, maybe every two years instead of every year?
The size wars are over, and we lost. For a lot of people, the iPhone SE was a proxy for “a smaller iPhone.” But it never was, really—it was just an older phone design, and since all smartphones have gotten larger over time, that meant that the iPhone SE was smaller. Those days are over—the 16e is just the same size as an iPhone 16. As someone who bought and loved an iPhone 14 mini, let me say it: The days of the tiny iPhone ain’t never coming back. I know, I know, but the market has spoken, and it turns out that bigger phones just sell better. Fans of smaller phones are just going to be unhappy, and I’m sorry about it, but that’s where we are.
This iPhone is memorable for a single reason. As a collection of features familiar from previous and current iPhone models, the iPhone 16e is utterly unremarkable. The model’s historical relevance comes down to a single feature, if you can even call it that: its cellular modem is the Apple C1, the culmination of a story that began when Apple bought Intel’s modem business nearly six years ago.
Theoretically, this allows Apple to control more of its destiny by not being forced to rely on a competitor (Qualcomm) for the lifeblood of its most important product. In the long run, the C1 and its successors could even become a competitive advantage for Apple. But in the short term, we’ll all be watching the 16e’s cellular performance and seeing if any quirks might give Apple a little bit of a black eye. (I’m sure Qualcomm is rooting for that!)
Still, this is why Apple is introducing the C1 with the iPhone 16e: It’s a minor Apple product, even though it’s an iPhone. If its cellular performance lags in any way, the company will be able to shrug it off and point to the fact that the 16e is a lower-priced product. But everyone at Apple will be hoping that everything goes smoothly so that the 16e can mark the company’s break from Qualcomm into cellular independence.
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