Report: iPhone SE could shed its 10-year-old design “as early as next week”
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You're the second person to claim that Apple is forcing AI on people.
Where are you guys getting this from?
It's certainly not in the article. All the article says is that the phones are getting 8GB of RAM which is a requirement for Apple Intelligence. Nothing to do with people being forced to use Apple Intelligence.
Do you guys want to be angry at something so bad that now you're just making up stuff to get angry about?
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My old eyes were what finally pushed me to switch my SE for a 14 Plus a couple of years ago. I've gotten used to the bigger size, but sometimes it would be so much more convenient to have a smaller phone.
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I hope not because I need something to replace my 13 mini in a few years. The SE was my only hope!
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I assume he means that you can wear a mask and use Touch ID no problem.
Face ID seems spotty if wearing a mask.
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Yes, well that could happen, but my use of it is intentionally simple - e.g. I don't use it for online banking or payments - and I actually seriously considered a Nokia feature-phone to replace my dead iPhone-6 but my job requirements overrode that. Other than the basics of communication, the only apps I run are for MFA, and these would be my main exposure point - the required security changing and Apple not offering it - but even Authenticators are not exactly cutting-edge tech.
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As someone that owns the current generation SE, it absolutely does not feel like a second class experience. This assumes a lot of subjective ideals that may not matter to SE users. We probably have an SE because of more than the price. I don't want FaceID. I like having a fingerprint reader and physical home button. I like the smaller one-handed design. I don't use my phone as a gimped laptop, thank you, not sorry. I'll tether my real laptop to my phone instead. The SE has the same OS as the rest of the supported generation phones. I don't give a crap about "Apple Intelligence". This may all seem like an old man yelling "get off my yard", but sometimes newer isn't always better, not to mention that "better" in this case is the subjective feels from the author and "old is busted" mentality many have these days. There's no objective performance based reason for people to update. It's a phone. It plays videos well. It navigates fine. It takes photos well enough. There's no one buying the SE for a state-of-the-art camera sensor. Get real. For people that just use their smartphone for communications and occasional photos, performance metrics plateaued years ago before the current SE release.
The only things listed for an updated SE feature list I remotely care about is the USB-C port, and even that isn't a big deal to me. But, I wouldn't mind seeing satellite emergency texting and location sharing service on a new SE as on the 16. Around here terrestrial coverage is spotty due to topography and dense woodland when you're away from the towns and main highways (which 5G EDAC can't really help with - you can't EDAC a non-existant signal that's absorbed by water in the trees, blocked by hill lines, or nearby creeks and rivers).
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Perhaps the iPhone mini was a disappointment, but it was still ~10m phones sold a year.
And the Zenfone 10 is not in the same class as the iPhone 12/13 mini. It is almost as big as a standard Samsung 2X, only 2.4mm width difference. The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact might be the last Android phone near the iPhone minis.
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/s...i,Samsung-Galaxy-S25/phones/12162,11637,12340
Though, for a true compact, one-handed phone, IMO that would be a 5 / SE OG or a S5 mini:
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/s...amsung-Galaxy-S5-mini/phones/12162,10001,8573
Ha, yea, no. Even the 16 is stuck at USB 2.0’s 480Mbps speeds… Backing up 512GB over USB must be fun.
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With FaceID, you can be asleep or unconscious, and a miscreant can unlock your phone. Had friends over last night, and one commented he woke up to his FORMER girlfriend trying to unlock his phone.
My iPhone is “3 strikes” with TouchID; which finger, and what pattern before I wipe myself?
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Incorrect. FaceID will not unlock unless it can see you looking at it. No attention, no unlock.
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Give me usb-c, touch id, and a headphone jack, and you'll have the perfect phone.
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Headphone jack? - not for me - moving the DAC out of the phone was one of the few things Apple got right IMO.
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I’m one of those small-phone enthusiasts, and I hate to say it, but you’re probably right.
I’m posting this from my 13 Mini. Yes, I’m holding out for some sort of small phone from Apple. No, I’m not likely to get one, for all the reasons you articulate here.
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Why are some of you so opposed to FaceID?
Not trolling. Honest question. FaceID just seems much more convenient to me.
Not trolling. Honest question. FaceID just seems much more convenient to me.
- Reliability concerns? My personal experience is that TouchID can be finicky, while FaceID seems rock solid as long as you're looking vaguely in the phone's direction. Wearing gloves is also an issue.
- Security concerns? You can hold a sleeping person's finger to the TouchID sensor, but FaceID won't unlock if the eyes are closed. Either way you can be coerced.
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That was almost the first thing I did with the 1st gen iPad that I bought. I went to a local bar that I frequented, connected the iPad to the bar's wifi, then made a Skype call (since I paid for a phone number through Skype) to the phone behind the bar, and talked to them on the iPad, holding the thing up to my ear.
It was pretty amusing.
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SolarPatrolman
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Small phone fan here. I keep reading statements like no one buys small phones or they were sales flops. Does anyone know of any actual hard sales numbers for such phones?
Because considering how greedy & non-customer-oriented so many corporations are these days, when a company says XYZ product didn't sell well, I get the feeling it didn't sell in (unrealistically) HUGE numbers, even though it actually made a decent profit.
Not everyone uses their phone as their main media access device, and would like it to fit in a normal-sized pants pocket with room to spare.
Because considering how greedy & non-customer-oriented so many corporations are these days, when a company says XYZ product didn't sell well, I get the feeling it didn't sell in (unrealistically) HUGE numbers, even though it actually made a decent profit.
Not everyone uses their phone as their main media access device, and would like it to fit in a normal-sized pants pocket with room to spare.
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Apple stopped releasing numbers, but there is some research out there (which may need to be taken with a bit of salt).
iPhone 12 mini & 13 mini sold something like ~10-12m each (~5-7% of all iPhones in their years), so that’s ~$12b+ total in sales across the two model years? For any brand other than Apple, those would be near about their top models.
Still, the iPhone 14, 15 & 16 Plus are apparently selling something like 10-15% of all iPhones each… a bit difficult to track, as they stay in the lineup for the next year too.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/21/best-selling-iphone-model-sizes-revealed/
Statista gives slightly different figures, but suggests iPhone 13 mini was ~1.4% of all iPhones in 2023, while the iPhone 15 Plus was ~1.6% at end 2024.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1280001/iphone-13-adoption-rate-by-model-worldwide/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1447263/iphone-15-adoption-rate-by-model-worldwide/
I’m hanging onto my 13 mini until 2027, hopefully someone will by then have a decent small phone replacement (i.e.none of this Zenfone-style ‘it’s a small phone!’-but-not-really nonsense).
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This is exactly why I bought this for my mother—I don’t want to train her all over again. She’s already accustomed to it, and switching now would be a nightmare. I won’t upgrade her iPhone if it doesn’t have a physical button.
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if FaceID fails with your glasses, have you done the extra training setup with your glasses on? FaceID support training both with and without your glasses to get more samples. It can be worthwhile doing that extra step if it has problems with your particular glasses.
When you choose “Add glasses”, I think you can add more than one pair.
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I plan to buy an SE4 for my mother because she recently broke her older phone and got herself an SE3. The TouchID on the SE3 can’t recognize her fingerprints. It’s common in older folk that their fingerprints become indistinct and TouchID doesn’t handle that. She has to type her passcode every time she opens her phone. She says its a PITA.
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While the differences in screen size sound like a lot, the actual cases are not that different. The iPhone 14 case is only abut a quarter of an inch bigger than the SE3.
SE3
screen diagonal: 4.7 in (120 mm)
case diagonal: 6.06 in (153.9mm)
iPhone 14
screen diagonal: 6.1 in (155 mm) (screen is 6.1, not 6.3)
case diagonal: 6.43 in (163.2mm)
If you do a lot of one handed operation, then the screen might make a difference but that is just a trade off of more display area. i haven’t found the change to be that hard to adapt to.
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That really isn’t most people’s experience with FaceID. Have you tried retraining it? Maybe you got a bad scan.
I always had problems with TouchID and moisture on my hands when cooking or doing gardening and other activities that involve water. Or cold weather and wearing gloves.
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The FaceID emitters and sensor are much more expensive than a simple capacitive touch button.
Apple has just found that most people find FaceID to be just as fast as TouchID and like it better.
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The iPhone 14 that this new SE is likely to be based on is 0.25” diagonally larger than the SE3. That is unlikely to challenge any pockets that the SE3 fit into. The size difference is misled by the difference in screen size.
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Yeah I've reset and redone it but I just too frequently have issues when it's bright outside, or when I'm just using my phone as a flashlight instead of turning on lights (I'm a night owl and don't want to wake the boss), and it keeps trying to scan me and locks. When it works it's great, when it doesn't it is maddening.
This is why I want both on there. If I could say "allow either but never lock from bad faceid attempts" I'd be thrilled.
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Most women don’t care about phones fitting in their pocket because even a small phone likely wouldn’t fit in the pocket on all of their clothes. Even if a phone fits in a woman’s pocket, they would still need to carry a purse for other stuff. If someone needs to carry a purse anyways, they end up preferring a larger phone. At least in my experience, women were early adopters of six inch phones.
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Convenience. My phone is often sitting on the table somewhere near me whe I want to unlock it, usually for 2FA or maybe to read a text. When I had TouchID I could just touch the button to unlock it. Now I have to pick it up and point it at my face. It's far less convenient for me.
I suppose, though, for the 99% of people whose phone is never, ever turned away from their face (unless they're sleeping) FaceID is more convenient.
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This does not account for the iPhone SE 2022 (& 6/7/8/SE 2020) having a screen which is already offset from the top of the phone chassis by ~2/3”, as compared to the iPhone 16 which has bezels of <0.1”. (The status bar at the top negates the iPhone 16’s screen’s corner curvature.)
So you are really looking at more than an inch of ‘reachability’ difference between the two from a bottom chassis corner to the diagonal screen edge:
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-SE-2022,Apple-iPhone-16/phones/11828,12240
The iPhone SE 2022 is more similar to the iPhone 12/13 mini in its reachability:
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-13-mini,Apple-iPhone-SE-2022/phones/11637,11828
(The thinner iPhone minis’ chassis definitely makes it an easier to hold one-handed while typing, though the SE OG’s width was the last which was fully secure in my hand when doing so.)
I don’t think there is evidence that people clearly like it better, as the option was never given in the same phone / generation (except maybe those given to beta testers), people never had a choice between the two on the same or comparable phones.
I would even venture that, though Apple had no way of foreseeing it, people would have much preferred TouchID over FaceID during at least 2020-2022 given face mask usage in that period.
(And perhaps longer: Apple’s iOS update to enable recognition with face mask usage in 2022 was clearly acknowledged to significantly reduce FaceID’s security.)
I personally also miss TouchID for when I wear a full-face helmet… would be nice to have it in my iPhone’s power button, similar to that in iPads.
Though yes, having FaceID vs TouchID has not stopped people from buying the new phones…
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Among my test devices, I have a budget Android phone (200€} and it has Touch ID on the unlock button on the side. Usually, by the time bring the phone to my face, it’s already unlocked. I can unlock and use it with one hand and never even bring it to my face.
By contrast, my amazing 2000€ iPhone greets me with “face not recognised” every morning, or needs me to hold my hair in a certain way so it sees my face. Also the notch is fugly.
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We did have such an option in 2017. iPhone X, the very first iPhone with FaceID, was released simultaneously with iPhone 8, which featured an identical CPU and comparable physical dimensions, but with Touch ID. True, iPhone 8 didn’t have OLED or dual cameras, but it was much cheaper too ($699 vs $999). Although 8 did very well—not surprising, as it was a great bargain—X still outsold 8 globally, four months in a row.
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SolarPatrolman
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Thanks for all the info!
Wow (at minimum) 10,000,000 units of one model. Of course, relative to their other models, that's chicken feed. But still: TEN MILLION. So, for Apple, that would be considered a flop.
But (I'm still keeping in mind these numbers aren't directly from Apple), @10,000,000 humans bought the 12 Mini and some of those humans bought its successor to replace their 12, along with X number of people who bought the 13 Mini without ever owning its predecessor.
That's still in the millions.
And to me, that means there's a lot of us small-phone people out there.
Lastly, those numbers don't account for the other phone manufacturers (which used to include Sony) that sell smaller phones. Admittedly, those companies usually tend to be obscure and/or specialty manufacturers, but whatever, someone is still buying their smaller phones so they continue to build them.
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