Is Apple preparing to update the iPhone SE next month? That’s the suggestion of Japan’s Macotakara, which expected Apple to refresh the smallest iOS handset with a new options to help the SE in China and India.
Apple launched the iPhone SE in March last year. Rather than follow the design cues of the iPhone 6 and 6S family (which continues to be seen in the iPhone 7 family), the SE looked back towards the iPhone 5 and 5S design, albeit with the same chip specifications as the iPhone 6S. In effect it was an upgrade of the 5S to the 6S internals while retaining the benefits of the smaller physical size and a four-inch screen, the secure enclave, and TouchID for Apple Pay.
What it was missing was 3D Touch, which allows different pressure levels too be detected on the screen.
At launch, it was available with 16GB or 64GB of internal storage. The 16GB storage severely limited the long-term life of the SE (the last model to do so as the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus would start their base model storage at 32GB), which meant that power users looking for a smaller device were pushed towards the 64GB model.
The expectation has been that the SE would not see an update on its one-year anniversary. Strictly speaking the now-expected upgrade of the internal storage to 128 GB is not a new model, but it’s an easy angle to spin that this SE is ‘a new SE.'
Given Apple’s push to get the SE into markets such as China and India where always-on connectivity to the cloud cannot be guaranteed (either through Wi-Fi or cellular data) having more storage on the lead device in the territory makes sense. Both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus currently offer a 128GB storage option, so bringing the SE up to speed while not updating the rest of the hardware is cost-effective for Apple and a boon to consumers.
Now read my long-term review of the iPhone SE here on Forbes…
