New photographs of this year’s new iPhone SE have been released, revealing the design tweaks Apple is making to its first mid-range smartphone in 3 years.
Veteran Apple leaker Sonny Dickson is the latest scoop. Its exclusive photographs highlight the design of Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone SE. The newest iPhone SE was released in 2022, and Apple is expected to release iOS tracking in the first part of 2025.
Dickson’s photographs show two matching “blanks” that Apple supplies to manufacturers of peripherals and accessories before their release. This allows brands to work with a device that has the same dimensions, button placement, and controls as the phone. Naturally, Apple prefers this approach, because the actual specs and software can be kept under lock and key,
Still, the whites allow us to take a closer look at Apple’s possible design choices and their impact on the operating system experience.
The controls and ports on the right side of the iPhone SE are obviously visible. A physical SIM card tray is located at the lower end. Above it are two volume buttons and the classic mute transfer is located above it. This carryover was removed from the mainline iPhone in favor of a programmable action button. This concept was continued with the capacitive camera control button that comes with the iPhone 16 family.
There’s no evidence of either being added to the iPhone SE design. Instead, the older toggle switch to mute the iPhone is returning. Given that one of the key marketing points of the iPhone SE is the lower price, the cost of materials will be far higher for a capacitive-style button than for an old-fashioned switch.
Even if the price gets closer, Apple would look for strategies to outperform the base iPhone and iPhone SE to enable easier upsells to more expensive hardware.
While attention may have been paid to introducing a dual-lens main camera formula to enable stereoscopic video recording for playback on the Apple Vision Pro, the iPhone SE 2025 shown here comes with just one lens.
Again, the hardware load and the separation between other iPhone models will be taken into account. But Apple has less wiggle room here with the action button than it does with the mute switch. The mid-range is very competitive and there will be smartphones at this level with dual camera lenses – the Pixel 8a is a smart example.
What we don’t see in those images are the iOS 18 updates that are expected to launch alongside the iPhone SE. The release schedule for the first wave of Apple Intelligence (Apple’s generative AI efforts) is expected to conclude with iOS 18. 3, also scheduled for the first few months of 2025. The iPhone SE will most likely be introduced with a new AI suite. tools.
Now the latest news about the iPhone SE, Macbook and AirPods in Forbes’ weekly Apple Loop column. . .