Apple is finally making an iPhone SE that’s actually special

The iPhone SE generally sits in the shadow of its more illustrious (by which I mean costlier) stablemates at the top of Apple’s smartphone range. But last week, with the iPhone 16 safely packed off to early adopters and rumormongers wondering how to fill their free time, we were treated to a pair of compelling reports related to the budget model coming next spring.

First, Bloomberg leaker Mark Gurman poured a bit of cold water on the more excitable theories about the 4th-gen SE, predicting that it will be based on the chassis of an iPhone 14, not an iPhone 16. That means the death of the Home button, as expected, but it also means the resurrection of the notch—a real case of swings and roundabouts there.

No sooner had Gurman doused the flames of speculation, however, than someone else came along to chuck on a load of extra petrol.

According to 9to5Mac’s sources, the site revealed in a post later in the week, the next SE will have an A18 processor with 8GB of RAM; impressive, but still comparatively predictable, because the device needs to support Apple Intelligence. That also fits the SE’s historical strategy, which is to load new components into an older case.

What goes beyond the expected compromise model is the prediction that the phone will feature some cameras from the iPhone 15–although sadly not its full array. The sources suggest Apple will cherry-pick the 48MP main lens, which is far more powerful than the 12MP equivalent on the iPhone 14, but it won’t get the ultra-wide, let alone the telephoto from the Pro models. The SE will remain, then, a single-camera device… but what a single camera.

Okay, so now we’ve got ourselves an interesting conceptual mashup. But where things get really spicy is the 5G modem. Hey David, the iPhone SE got 5G in 2022! Quite right, and well remembered. But this is a very special 5G modem. It’s the very first in-house Apple modem, following the company’s acquisition of Intel’s modem division way back in 2019. As recently as last year there were reports that the entire project was dead, but Centauri is back, baby!

This isn’t just a cost-saving measure. The new modem is likely to bring yet more opportunities for Apple to optimize the interaction between hardware and software. And that means reduced power consumption and improved battery performance. Battery life, I won’t need to remind you, is a hugely important criterion for a new smartphone getting positive or negative reviews–as Apple discovered with the last SE.

It’s bizarre to think that Apple’s cheapest phone will be the first to benefit from such an appealing and useful tech development. Normally features appear on the Pro models first, for the obvious reason that Apple wants to use them to persuade customers to spend more money. But the Centauri modem isn’t expected to land on any flagship iPhones until the launch of the iPhone 17 roughly six months after the 4th-gen SE.

Perhaps this is an experiment–a move that Apple considers too risky to try on a flagship iPhone without testing it on something less important first. I can think of one precedent for that, when the entry-level iPad got a landscape-orientation FaceTime camera two years before the other iPads. To be honest, though, I thought that move was silly too. It was such an obvious improvement that Apple must have generated ill will, and certainly cost itself some upgrade revenue when customers discovered that the feature wasn’t available on the iPads Air and Pro. (It finally appeared on the more expensive models this year.)

Whether this is the best move from a revenue point of view, then, remains to be seen. But it’s hard to fault a company for simply making the best phone it can, regardless of the strategic implications. And it would be nice for the iPhone Special Edition to get an upgrade that lives up to its name.

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

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Podcast of the week

On this week’s episode of the Macworld Podcast, it’s all about your hot takes! You have thoughts about the iPhone 16 and other new Apple products, and we talk about them on the show!

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

The rumor mill

M4 MacBook Pro leak reveals key upgrades coming to base model.

The iPhone SE 4 will bring back the notch, kill the Home button.

Apple Intelligence-powered smart display set to launch next year.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, or Twitter for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.