According to mass rumors and leaks, the budget-end iPhone SE 4, or perhaps the iPhone 16E, is supposed to debut in 2025. However, numerous conflicting rumors about the phone’s capabilities have become so confusing that we can only agree that it looks like the most basic iPhone you can buy.
Routine leaker Majin Bu has a spotty track record for Apple leaks, such as the fake invite he posted to last year’s iPhone 16 launch event. Even so, the video has the form factor we’ve anticipated based on previous rumors and leaks. What doesn’t help Bu’s case is previous rumors from fellow leaker Evan Blass, who claimed the next cheap iPhone would have the Dynamic Island feature for the last two iPhone generations.
Here's what the iPhone SE 4 looks like pic.twitter.com/pEyIAJ34VR
— Majin Bu (@MajinBuOfficial) January 25, 2025
This is either a prototype or a dummy unit, but either way, it seems like a mix of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15. The iPhone SE 4, judging by the video, is incredibly barebones, with a single camera bump and front notch for the selfie camera. The design holds what appears to be the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16’s Action Button, a SIM card tray, but no sign of the camera capture button. It also has a different design from what fellow leaker Sonny Dickson recently posted, showing an iPhone SE 4 dummy with the ring/silent switch rather than the action button of the latest Apple devices.
We’ve been hearing rumors about the iPhone SE 4 since 2023, which seems like a long time when you consider that Apple last put its last budget iPhone up for sale three years ago. The third-generation iPhone SE still included the home button, large speaker, and camera cutout at the top, and it had essentially the same chassis as the second-generation iPhone SE.
If the videos prove true, the iPhone SE 4 is still a major improvement over its predecessor. Yet, it feels less so, thanks to all the hardware improvements Apple has made to its mobile framework over the past three years. The Cupertino tech giant has added the Action and Camera Capture buttons to the base iPhone 16 rather than restricting them to the Pro models. Everything also includes a Dynamic Island, which first debuted with the iPhone 14, replacing the old camera notches.
The iPhone SE 4, or the 16E, may be just one of three separate iPhone releases in 2025. Apple is reportedly setting up the iPhone 17 launch to be the big one for its AI ambitions, but there’s also the rumored iPhone 17 Air. That device is supposed to be Apple’s thin and light offering, made to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge announced at Galaxy Unpacked. We still need to see if these thinner phones can compete on battery life as their thicker cousins. We liked the ultra-thin, ultra-bright iPad Pro M4, which was somehow thinner than the iPad Air. Maybe there’s something to be said about thin devices.
We’ve come to expect a lot from budget devices from the most major mobile makers. The $500 Google Pixel 8a was everything you could get with the company’s flagship but with worse cameras. Consumers today will likely expect to get a solid iPhone experience, just at a lower price. Considering that other affordable phones, like the upcoming $300 Motorola Moto G Power devices, offer bigger batteries and water resistance, Apple is better off giving customers an experience as close to the regular iPhone 16 as possible.
)
)
)
English (US) ·