The
iPhone SE 4 is expected to be released early next year. Taking its design cues from the
iPhone 14, the
iPhone SE 4 will be the first “Special Edition” iPhone to do away with Touch ID replacing it with Face ID and the notch. It also will have a 6.1-inch OLED display replacing the LCD screen used on the first three
iPhone SE models. The phone will carry 8GB of RAM which means that it will support Apple Intelligence, Apple’s AI initiative.
What does a leaked photo of an iPhone SE 4 case tell us about the hardware?
Leaked photo of iPhone SE 4 gives us some hints about what features might be found on the phone. | Image credit-Sonny Dickson
The leaked case for the
iPhone SE 4 also does not seem to include the brand-spanking new Camera Control button found on the
iPhone 16,
iPhone 16 Plus,
iPhone 16 Pro, and
iPhone 16 Pro Max. This feature allows users to change the settings on the camera app by swiping and pressing the Camera Control button on the side of the phone. It also allows you to take a photograph and start recording video.
One thing that you must expect from the
iPhone SE 4 with all of the changes is actually very obvious. That is a higher dollar amount on the price tag which started at $429 for the
iPhone SE 3 model with 64GB of storage in 2022. Apple is almost sure to hike the pricing on the
iPhone SE 4 and with the
iPhone 14 priced at $599 and up at Apple’s online store, this creates an interesting pricing quandary for the company.
What will the iPhone SE 4 be priced at?
While the iPhone SE 4 will be below the iPhone 14 on Apple’s depth charts (it is considered a “budget” phone after all), the device will come with 8GB of RAM allowing it to support Apple Intelligence. The iPhone 14 carries 6GB of RAM which means that it cannot support Apple’s AI initiative. Also, if the rumors are true, the iPhone SE 4 will have a more powerful A18 chipset inside compared to the A15 Bionic chipset that runs the iPhone 14.
So where does
Apple price the
iPhone SE 4? A case could be made that it should be priced at or even above the $599 that the 128GB
iPhone 14 costs with the same amount of storage. It still would be considered a budget price compared to the
iPhone 16‘s $799. But this only would work if Apple replaces the
iPhone 14 with the
iPhone SE 4. If not, Apple could decide to price the
iPhone SE 4 at $500 which would cement its position as a budget phone with value.
For now, all we can do is monitor the situation. As the calendar gets closer to the expected release next spring, we should run into more leaks and rumors about the pricing for the iPhone SE 4.
If Apple does bring the
iPhone SE into the modern era with the next iteration of the phone, it will mean the end of Touch ID which made its first appearance in 2013 on the iPhone 5s. It was a much better fingerprint scanner than the previous attempt by
Motorola who included a disappointing one with the Atrix back in 2011.
