iPhone SE 4 Rumors: The next cheap iPhone may not be such a amazing thing but it may come with a whole lot of enhancements.

Despite Apple’s less expensive unit, the gadget may stage another blockbuster in 2025. Apple’s $429 iPhone SE, which is currently the cheapest iPhone the company sells, will be given a major update next year to make it closer to Apple’s current iPhones, sources told Bloomberg and other publications. In contrast to the iPhone family, the OEM’s iPhone SE has a less regular schedule of introduce.

The newest generation consists of the first generation SE, which emerged in 2016; the second generation in 2020; and the latest version launched in 2022. Apple also does not comment on its future products, and it has not indicated if it will produce new iPhone SEs in future. As the prior whispers hint that iPhone SE would take over the design from iPhone 14, the next release may spell the goodbye to home button and no more tiny screens.

Apple has much more levers it can pull to make its cheaper iPhone even better. Some of my colleague Patrick Holland appreciations include, in 2022 iPhone SE said that it was affordable, it was also endowed with a home button, but said that it lacked night mode photos and that it was vintage with the design. Similarly positioned budget phones have also been improved by android competitors like Samsung & Google in recent year.

The Google Pixel 8A and Samsung Galaxy A55 5G have affordable high-end peering options at the same high refresh rates and multiple cameras at an affordable price point. We cannot predict what new products are going to show up with Apple until the firm makes some revelation. Bloomberg’s predictions, the MacRumors sources, the plugged-in TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, other leaks, and Apple’s product launch timeline all point toward these expectations for Apple’s next budget iPhone. Apple had not replied to a request for comment on a future iPhone SE at the time this article was first published.

iPhone SE 4 may be released during the first quarter of next year 2025

The iPhone SE 4’s launch timing has been one of the most hotly debated topics of the past few years. However, an August article by the frequently reliable Mark Gurman of Bloomberg indicates that a new iPhone SE model might be released at the start of 2023. That indicates that it may well land in Q1 and that would fit with previous release timings for Apple’s iPhone SE. The first and third generation models, for instance, both began in March.

The analyst Kuo also said in October that the new iPhone SE’s mass production would start in December 2024, and this also suggested that it might be possible for Apple to release another tiny phone in early 2025. The reports emerge at a time when rumors and speculations regarding the iPhone SE have been escalating for the last several years. Speaking about new models in 2019, Kuo stated that Apple planned the production of the new iPhone SE model with a display like the iPhone XR as reported by MacRumors. Apple has since released two generations of the iPhone SE which maintains the iPhone 8 mimic body design thus people questioned whether the model that Kuo was referring to is being phased out or delayed. Another area where Kuo has been less certain about the iPhone SE 4 and the same applies for the 2023 forecast.

This same man said that in the same month last year an iPhone SE to be offered in the 2024 model year was going to be canned but then later unsaid that the project had been resurrected. Then in April 2023 he altered his forecast yet again, stating that the model he had predicted prior might be an engineering sample of an Apple in-house developed 5G baseband chip. He also previously hinted at the same suggesting that iPhone SE 4 would come with this 5G chip.

However, newer reports about Apple work on a new iPhone SE have been published, including the blog of MacRumors, and it states that the new iPhone SE model is expected to have some serious improvements.

It is probable that the new one will introduce a new processor, and Apple Intelligence.

The iPhone SE usually comes with the same chip as in the latest generation flagship iPhone. For instance, the 2022 iPhone SE with a 13th generation processor released in March 2022 has similar chip as the iPhone 13, which was released in September 2021. Given that the latest mobile chip is often the biggest innovation in the iPhone SE, it would be implausible for Apple to deviate from this a bit.

But that’s more important than ever now that more recent features such as Apple Intelligence are built alongside local chips. Right now, only the iPhone 16 family and last year’s iPhone Pro line can handle these features. However, going by the nature of Apple and the Bloomberg report that indicates that the iPhone SE 4 will feature Apple Intelligence, that trend may be set to change in the coming months. Apple Intelligence consists with methods like the rewrite, the summarise or spellcheck option, the new siri version while being able to comprehend words even if you stumble over it, the erase object in photos option, the notification and message summary options and still many more.

A set of Apple Intelligence features was released with Apple’s iOS 18.1 upgrade, while new features like creating personalized emojis will appear in the next upgrade, the iOS 18.2. In any other case, the following iPhone SE may receive an Apple-developed 5G chip, Kuo said. Yet, it is unclear whether he still holds this view given that he followed that comment with a revised forecast to the effect that this device is probably an engineering prototype to evaluate that 5G chip. According to MacRumors, iPhone SE 4 will come with an inhouse Apple 5G modem.

An iPhone 14 like design with an OLED screen

Should the company be working on another iPhone SE,it will come with a 6.1 inches display like the current generation apple flagship devices. The current iPhone SE, on the other hand, had a 4.7-inch display with chunky bezels above and below it, much like an iPhone 8. Especially, iPhone SE4 has speculations to resemble iPhone 14 which Apple introduced in 2022. Another article published in September 2023 by MacRumors said that iPhone SE 4 will have the slightly tweaked chassis of the iPhone 14, while it resurfaced in November and confirmed the same thing.

In its report, Bloomberg also provides some details on the iPhone SE 4 design noting it will resemble the company’s two-year old flagship. Contrary to the design which is expected to enhanced, the display itself is also a candidate for the triumphant improvement. Kuo and MacRumors have owned that the next iPhone SE will implement OLED display rather than an LCD screen, supported by Bloomberg, The Elec, and Nikkei Asia. That is significant because OLED usually offers higher contrast and better blacks and this kind of display is uniform else where in the Apple iPhone range.

The new iPhone SE will also probably arrive with a bigger battery

About battery, MacRumors was suggesting that the next iPhone SE might take the battery of the iPhone 14 as well. Should this particular blog’s prior reports that iPhone SE 4 will mimic iPhone 14 ring true, then a bigger battery would be required to feed the device’s bigger display. Apple no longer publicly releases battery capacities for these phones, but it has said that the iPhone 14 should provide five more hours of video playback than the iPhone 8 in the third-generation iPhone SE. Between the new chip and what we expect to be larger battery in the next iPhone SE, it seems that Apple’s next cheap iPhone can demonstrate a quite impressive increase in battery life.

While last year we had heard about the Touch ID it is now time to meet the Face ID.

Lovers of Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor may never get their joy. According to MacRumors, the next model of iPhone SE will be equipped with Face ID unlike other iPhone gadgets that apply fingerprint identification from Apple. This is contradictory to what Kuo reported in February last year of this year that future iPhone SE will have less notched area but will not support Face ID and Touch ID integrated into the power button. However, that data may be old since Kuo’s report is dated about 5 years back.

There were rumours it could receive a 48MP camera, USB-C and an Action button

The second iPhone to come from Apple at an affordable price may share a few key features with Apple’s more recent models. Since Apple adopted USB-C for iPhones in the iPhone 15 series due to the EU’s new regulations, it remains possible that the iPhone SE 4 will also abandon the Lightning port. MacRumors also says that iPhone SE 4 will feature the USB-C port.

The more shocking piece of information in MacRumors’ report is that the iPhone SE 4 could get the Action button which is a new key for assigning shortcuts, and is currently available only on the iPhone 16 series, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. If this is true it will be another clear indication that Apple wants the Action button to become a staple across the iPhone range following the inclusion of the Action button on the standard iPhone models this year.

The same source reveals that there might be a larger, 48-megapixel single camera in the next iPhone SE. That would signal another similarity it could share with the iPhone 15 and 16, which also have 48-megapixel main cameras. However, if the leaked report is to be believed, the iPhone SE will have only one rear camera compared to Apple’s flagship phones. The standard iPhone 15 includes only wide and ultra-wide lenses; the Pro models benefit from the addition of a telephoto lens.

But Apple added the “Fusion” camera this year to the regular iPhone 16, and iPhone 16 Plus, which, it claims, allows a 2 optical quality zoom though it does not have a telephoto lens. Although the reports do not state that iPhone SE 4 will have this camera, it makes sense for the company to implement it in case of the iPhone SE as a single back camera is not very appealing.

If those rumors are accurate, the fourth generation of the iPhone SE will actually update Apple’s mini-brute of a smartphone for the modern generation. Assuming the price is right, it might well become a good option for anyone tired of older models and seeking the more contemporary iPhone that lacks the iPhone 16’s Camera Control button.