In the heady days of early 2016, Apple did the unexpected and released a true budget iPhone. It was called the iPhone SE.
Now, more than seven years later, it has been added to Apple's official list of obsolete devices, making it a vintage Cupertino smartphone. So pour one out for the SE, because it was and still is a pretty important phone.
The first iPhone that I had considered affordable initially passed me by. I had fully embraced Android phones and felt there were better budget alternatives to a $399/£359 phone that lacked some of the features that budget phones had.
But I had missed the point.
iPhone access granted
What the iPhone SE represented was an affordable and straightforward way to access Apple's enviable app and hardware ecosystem, which had launched the year before with the likes of the Apple Watch and was starting to emerge at a good pace. to build.
For a reasonable amount of money, albeit not super cheap, iPhone SE users got access to Apple's impressive native apps, the robust iOS operating system, a curated and fairly secure App Store, a powerful chipset (the same as the iPhone 6S series that came out about six times). months before), as well as access to exclusive connectivity features like AirPlay and Apple Pay. So where Apple devices once stood firmly at the top of the mobile market, the (arguably) most iconic Apple device since the iPod has been brought within the reach of many more people.
And I credit the iPhone SE for bringing the likes of the Google Pixel A series to market; Google's budget version of its own internally designed phone was released in October 2016.
Google has been running around with the idea of taking top features and packing them into an affordable phone ever since, with the latest example being the Pixel 7a, which often trumps many of the other best budget phones year in and year out. But I do think Apple has set a precedent for others to follow.
SE-eking success
The original iPhone SE was sold for three years before being put out to pasture in September 2018. In 2020, it was replaced by the iPhone SE 2, which built on the formula, taking some of the hardware and software features of the high-end iPhones and filtering. it in the SE.
No doubt some of the magic was lost with the second generation SE. It used a rather archaic design, although the addition of Touch ID still had some appeal, and stuck with a single rear camera when other phones in the same price range had more. But the use of a powerful chipset and impressive camera performance kept the SE's appeal alive.
The iPhone SE 3 arrived in 2022, but felt like a bit of a disappointment. It has the same now age-old aesthetic as its predecessor and the hardware wasn't particularly exciting. Some, including myself, had hoped for a design closer to the iPhone 12 or iPhone 13.
And now we wait for hints and rumors about an iPhone SE 4. So far, these have been few and far between. And now that Apple is offering a mix of financing options, you could argue that it no longer needs a significantly cheaper iPhone.
Nevertheless, I feel like the iPhone SE left a mark and was a sign that Apple could produce a device that didn't have to torpedo your bank balance. And I think it was a wake-up call for other major phone makers to make attractive budget phones.
In the meantime, I'm holding out hope for a next-generation iPhone SE that could surprise and delight me… sooner or later.