New iPhone SE expected next week – with it the home button dies forever!

The next iPhone SE has been expected for months, and now Mark Gurman – one of the most reliable Apple-watchers – is saying it could be announced next week. When he says something about Apple, he tends to be right!

The iPhone SE has long been Apple's cheapest iPhone – the gateway to the iPhone world, and has become the route many people gain access to the Apple ecosystem (after the demise of the iPod). It typically incorporates older tech, which is why the current iPhone SE, released in 2022, still incorporates Apple's Touch ID fingerprint recognition home button.

Gurman, writing for Bloomberg, suggests that the new phone is likely to dispose of this, meaning that Apple will be killing off the much-loved home button for good, replacing it with Face ID across the iPhone range.

The new iPhone will look more like the iPhone 14 and – according to Gurman – will be capable of running Apple Intelligence, a feature found on the best iPhones for photography.

The expected processor will the A18, and there will be a 6.1-inch screen – significant improvemnts – though there will likely be a notch rather than the 'dynamic island' around the cameras as seen on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16. (It makes a lot of sense for Apple to stick as closely as possible to a previous model from a manufacturing perspective.)

The iPhone SE will also almost certainly get a USB-C port; Apple was forced to discontinue the 2022 model early in the EU because it uses the proprietary Lightning port. It will also be the first iPhone with Apple's own modem chip, a significant change for the company's supply chain but one it must be hoping won't affect the customer experience.

As evidence the device is coming sooner rather than later, Gurman also cites dwindling stock of the 2022 model in Apple stores.

Something which will be interesting is the price point. At the moment Apple charge $429 / £419 for the iPhone SE 2022 edition – some tipsters have suggested significantly higher prices for the new version (as high as $549). That's still well below the $799 entry point for the iPhone 16.

Personally I think (and Gurman agrees) that Apple will be more mindful of the competition, especially as iPhone sales actually shrunk by 1% in Q4 2024. Apple will be keen not to let that become a trend.

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