iPhone 16e is here, and it's not the iPhone SE. Apple didn't simply change the expected iPhone SE 4 name to iPhone 16e — they're distinct product lines and all the data points to a strategy shift. We should have seen this coming. Every Apple-focused website saw Tim Cook's post on February 13 and assumed that it was an iPhone SE 4 reveal.
After all, almost all of the rumors for the last 18 months have called it the iPhone SE 4. An iPhone was announced on Wednesday, but it wasn't that iPhone SE 4. Apple's newest entry is an iPhone 16 model trimmed to the bare minimum acceptable feature set to earn it that name.
So no, Apple didn't just introduce an iPhone SE 4 by a different name. I believe this is an important distinction when discussing the iPhone 16e. It is no longer the "budget-friendly" model that'll slip into cheap Android price ranges during holiday sales — it's something else.
Apple discontinued the iPhone SE line on Wednesday. The iPhone 16e is now at the bottom of the iPhone lineup. Signs pointed to Apple's new entry-model strategy as early as January 2023, but everyone missed them. It seems Ming-Chi Kuo may have been mostly correct when he shared the iPhone SE 4 was canceled.
However, when Kuo reported that Apple resumed development of the iPhone SE 4 in February 2023, it's clear he was unknowingly talking about the iPhone 16e. The shift between the two device strategies is likely what led to the delay from a 2024 launch to 2025.
Not to mention, Apple's C1 modem just wasn't ready. Reports pegged the in-house modem launching in 2024, but it didn't make it into the iPhone 16 lineup. Note that the iPhone SE 4 was rumored to take on the iPhone XR design up until Kuo's note on the canceled project. Later in 2023, rumors shifted to an iPhone 14-like product.
The iPhone XR would have been a natural next step for the iPhone SE line. The original looked like the iPhone 5S in a world where the iPhone 6 existed, and the 2022 model looked like the iPhone 8 in a world full of Face ID devices. A rumor in September 2023 said the new budget iPhone would look like an iPhone 14, feature one rear 48MP camera, have a notch with Face ID, have an Action button, and use an in-house modem. This came from a source speaking directly to MacRumors, and they were spot on in every count.
It's very likely that Apple had solidified its product strategy around the iPhone 16e at this point, codenamed Ghost. The product name may not have been known at this point, as the leak continued to refer to it as an iPhone SE 4, but it puzzled us here at AppleInsider.
The specs sounded too good to be true for an iPhone SE, and in retrospect, we were right. It didn't seem likely that Apple would offer these specs near the existing $429 price point, but given the expected 2024 or 2025 launch at the time, it was possible.
Maybe we're missing something here, but it seems that no one framed the device as anything but an iPhone SE during the entire rumor cycle. Had anyone arrived at it being a new model, it may have changed our ability to predict accuracy. Looking back, it all makes sense. This wasn't an iPhone SE 4, and that product name and category wouldn't work here.
With that framing, the leaked name would have made a lot more sense. Device naming doesn't really leak, especially when a name changes or existing branding is extinguished. So it's easy to understand why the product continued to be referred to as the iPhone SE 4 up to the announcement. That said, the iPhone 16e name did leak in January 2025, but the sources were historically unreliable so it was dismissed.
The iPhone 16e leak got AppleInsider's lowest rumor score rating, and for good reason. If we were talking about the iPhone SE line, calling it an iPhone 16 would have been incredibly confusing from a marketing standpoint. Our understanding of Apple's strategies around the product category and the unreliable sources pointed to this being nonsense. However, the new iPhone is called the iPhone 16e, but as we've established above, this wasn't a simple name change.
Even the leaker with the current best track record, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, called the device the iPhone SE throughout the rumor cycle. He did, however, admit that Tim Cook's post just days before the event suggested that the iPhone SE name was likely going away.
Had we been considering the rumored product to be an entirely new iPhone category, the iPhone 16e naming would have made more sense. The name implies there would be an iPhone 17e and an update every year — which is not how the iPhone SE works. So, we're happy to admit they got the name right in spite of the low rumor score. However, the score stands given the unreliable sourcing and framing it as an iPhone SE 4.
At best, even if we were considering this rumored product a new category between iPhone SE and iPhone 16, the iPhone 16e name would have likely been ranked as "unlikely.". Rumors are a tough game to judge. After this release, we can easily continue to say Ming-Chi Kuo is an excellent source of information, even if you have to work around his incorrect interpretations.
