'Some people simply love smaller phones': Apple launched the iPhone SE ten years ago today and it makes me long for an iPhone 17 mini

Date:
Sat, 21 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Description:
The original iPhone SE launched 10 years ago today and its impact is still being felt.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get the TechRadar Newsletter Sign up for
breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are
now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter The recent launch of the $599 MacBook Neo which has just helped to break Mac sales records , according to Tim Cook has shaken up the assumption that
Apple focuses only on premium products. Yet that idea was never really true.

Steve Jobs often made the case that Apples desire was to make premium
products attainable to more people, and in many cases its devices came in at lower prices than rival offerings with similar specs. But before the MacBook Neo demonstrated that Apple knew how to combine top-quality touches with accessible price tags, there was another affordable Apple product on
everyones lips: the iPhone SE. Article continues below You may like The last iPhone with a headphone jack was released 10 years ago in 2016, and I will go to my grave resenting Apple for it Keep your huge screens and triple cameras I just want the iPhone 5s back Do we really need an iPhone 17e?

The original iPhone SE was introduced to the world on March 21, 2016, making it ten years old today. With Apple returning to its low-cost ambitions a decade later (for both the Mac and the iPhone), now is a good time to look back at the iPhone SEs impact and what the future might hold for cut-price iPhones now that the MacBook Neo has made such a splash. Enter the iPhone SE Apple - March Event 2016 - YouTube Watch On Today, the standard iPhone 17
will set you back a minimum of $799 / 799 / AU$1,399, and entry-level iPhones have hovered around this mark for many years now. When thats the case, its easy to forget that the iPhone used to be much more affordable and you get a taste of that time by watching the iPhone SE launch segment above.

While the original iPhone was priced at $499 for 4GB of storage in the US, Apple quickly dropped the price of the 8GB model to $399 and discontinued the 4GB option. After that, the iPhone 3G was available for $199 alongside a two-year cell plan. That $199 price quickly became the norm for Apples most affordable iPhones, lasting right through until the iPhone 7 jacked the price up to $649 / 599 / AU$1,079 in September 2016 (although it also dropped the two-year plan requirement).

It was into this world that the $399 / 379 / AU$679 iPhone SE arrived.
Because while its price tag seems odd when the iPhone 6s an ostensibly
better device released six months earlier cost $199 up front, it also came with a potentially onerous two-year cell plan, which could rack up the costs. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our
trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

The iPhone SE also offered something very different: a return to smaller phones. The iPhone had been growing in size ever since its debut. Not only were the standard iPhones getting bigger, Apple was offering the iPhone Plus range as an option with even more screen real estate. If you wanted things to shrink in the other direction, you had few options. Until the SE... 'Some people simply love smaller phones' (Image credit: Future) Apple was very
clear when it launched the iPhone SE that small-scale simplicity was the
goal. As Greg Joswiak (then VP of iOS) said at the iPhone SE launch: "While the vast majority of our customers prefer larger display iPhones, we're here today to talk about a smaller iPhone".

"So why are people buying 4-inch iPhones? Well, there's two reasons. First, some people simply love smaller phones. They want the most compact iPhone design. Second, we found that for a lot of these customers, it's their first iPhone," he added. What to read next iPhone 17e vs iPhone 17: which should
you buy? I love the MacBook Neo and its wild colors but Apple missed a big trick with the iPhone 17e Why the iPhone 17e has been overshadowed by the Nothing Phone (4a)

Cue those MacBook Neo comparisons. Tim Cook said this week that "Mac just had its best launch week ever for first-time Mac customers", and without explicitly saying why, it was a clear nod to the success of its affordable
new laptop. For Apple, the Neo is a gateway drug for macOS, just as the
iPhone SE once was for iOS.

Describing the SE as the most powerful phone with a four-inch display, the company took pains to emphasize its beloved compact aluminum design as a key selling point. The same, but different (Image credit: Apple) Still, compared to the MacBook Neo, the iPhone SE achieved its low price in a very different way. While the MacBook Neo cuts features but keeps roughly the same
dimensions as the M5 MacBook Air , the iPhone SE kept the power and put it into a smaller frame.

For instance, the iPhone SE launched with the same A9 chip as the
then-current iPhone 6s. You got just as much power as Apples flagship iPhone, just in a more compact package. You also got longer battery life than the iPhone 6s up to 13 hours of video playback compared to the iPhone 6ss 11 hours, for example despite the iPhone SE using the same chip and a smaller chassis with less internal space for batteries.

The MacBook Neo, on the other hand, runs on an A18 Pro chip designed for mobiles, not a desktop-class M-series chip. It loses the backlit keyboard,
the Force Touch trackpad, capacious memory and storage options, a few hours
of battery life, and more. Its clear that its a cut-back device, albeit one whose $599 / 599 / AU$899 price tag is hard to resist.

So how did Apple keep the iPhone SEs price down? Well, it had to make a few sacrifices.

The front-facing camera was inferior to that of the iPhone 6s, offering 1.2MP photos compared to the iPhone 6ss 5MP snaps. The iPhone 6s was also a little slimmer, despite being taller and wider. And by basing its chassis on one first used by the iPhone 5, Apple could save on the design and manufacturing costs that would have come with a new look.

But other than that, there really wasnt much to separate the two products reinforcing the idea that the iPhone SE focused on bringing its cost down primarily through physical means, not by cutting features. A complicated legacy (Image credit: Future) Now that Apple is returning to the world of low-cost Macs, what does that tell us about the future of affordable iPhones?

Well, the iPhone SEs successor is seemingly in rude health. Apple has just launched the iPhone 17e , which has taken the place of the SE line. The
iPhone 17e has been released one year after the iPhone 16e, which rebooted
the companys affordable iPhone range. The fact that Apple is seemingly planning on yearly releases for this device suggests that there is sufficient demand to justify frequent updates.

Yet like the MacBook Neo, the iPhone 17e is not the same beast as the iPhone SE. While the iPhone SE was an explicitly palm-sized device its 4-inch frame was conspicuously smaller than the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s the iPhone 17e is only a touch more compact than the iPhone 17.

If you want a true heir of the iPhone SE that is, a shrunk-down iPhone that maintains the power and performance of its peers then you dont really have that choice anymore. Apple has seemingly given up on its mini iPhone range, with 2021s i Phone 13 mini being the last in a short-lived dynasty of compact iPhones.

That all means that the legacy of the original iPhone SE, launched ten years ago today, is a little complicated. Because while affordable Apple devices
are alive and well in the form of the iPhone 17e and the MacBook Neo, they take a slightly different approach to the one set down by the iPhone SE.

But whats not in doubt is the fact that now is potentially the best time in decades possibly ever to be an Apple fan on a budget. Thanks to the iPhone 17e and the MacBook Neo, you can now grab a low-cost Apple phone and laptop for $1,200 / 1,200 / AU$1,900 combined something that would have felt impossible even just a year ago.

And with Apples newly rediscovered commitment to affordable pricing, weve got the iPhone SE to thank for getting us to where we are today. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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