Just weeks after the release of the iPhone 16, thoughts are already turning to the more affordable smartphone Apple plans to unveil early next year. In many ways this will be a far more interesting and radical launch.
The iPhone SE is updated less frequently than the flagship models at the top of the iPhone range: the three models so far have arrived in 2016, 2020, and 2022, with the 4th-gen SE expected to debut in spring 2025. For this reason, it might be expected that these rarer events would be more substantive, but that wasn’t the case with the 3rd-gen SE, which was, in fact a disappointment. So Apple owes us big for the 4th-gen model–and it might actually deliver.
The expectation is that we’re about to get a long-overdue design revamp, away from the iPhone 8 chassis used for the last two models and into something resembling a modern smartphone. Incredibly, it might leap all the way forward to an iPhone 16 shell, according to credible sources. And with the 9th-gen iPad discontinued earlier this year, this would represent the end of the Home button that was once such an iconic element of Apple’s mobile products.
It’s been the consensus among pundits for some time that the 4th-gen SE will be a major step forward for the line, but Bloomberg leaker king Mark Gurman adds credibility and some additional detail to the rumors. Basing his pronouncements on the testimony of “people with knowledge of the matter… who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public,” Gurman claims the next model is codenamed V59 and is intended to help Apple compete with low-end Android phones in China.
On the design front, Gurman suggests the new SE will use an iPhone 14 rather than an iPhone 16 shell. This would still be a significant step forward from the antiquated iPhone 8 chassis, of course, but would mean the inclusion of a notch: no Dynamic Island for SE buyers, unfortunately. But it did always seem ambitious that the SE would so closely match a flagship phone that will be only six months old when it comes out.
Particularly as the 4th-gen SE will support one of the 16-series iPhones’ marquee features: Apple Intelligence. That likely means it will have an A18 processor with 8GB of RAM, one of the requirements for Apple Intelligence. As I’ve written elsewhere, this might just make it the perfect Apple Intelligence device, and it certainly suggests we can expect a state-of-the-art processor and respectable complement of RAM. In the past, the iPhone SE has offered up-to-date tech specs within an older design, and its appeal varied according to the precise age of that design: a chassis that will be 30 months old by next spring feels like a sensible compromise.
For all the latest news and rumors, check our iPhone SE 2025 superguide.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.