Apple’s cheapest phone just got more expensive with the iPhone 16e
Apple on Wednesday introduced a new version of its cheapest iPhone but at a significantly higher price, continuing a trend of smartphone companies and consumers gravitating toward higher-end devices.
The new device, the iPhone 16e, costs $599 and up, compared with the $429 starting price for the most recent version of the iPhone SE. The iPhone 16e is expected to replace the iPhone SE, which Apple has sold since 2016 but has not updated for three years.
The old iPhone SE accounted for only about 1% of total iPhone sales, according to technology analysis firm Counterpoint Research.
Apple is struggling to adapt to changing habits that have hurt iPhone sales. People are holding onto their smartphones longer, and Apple is losing ground in China, one of its most important markets, to competing phone brands.
The nine-year-old iPhone SE has attracted a niche of people who liked the device for its relatively low cost and smaller size that fits more comfortably in some people’s hands. Apple changed both of those selling points with the new model unveiled Wednesday.
When the iPhone SE first went on sale in 2016, it had a starting price of $399. More recently, smartphone companies have increasingly focused on making higher-priced phones that are selling better than cheaper models, Counterpoint says.
The iPhone 16e has a 6.1-inch screen, the same as the newest iPhone 16 devices. The iPhone SE previously had a 4.7-inch display.
Apple stressed that the new model is one of the few iPhone models that let people access Apple’s artificial-intelligence features that include AI-suggested proofreading of emails and options to digitally erase unwanted elements in photos.
Apple’s AI features have been polarizing, including summaries of iPhone news notifications that have sometimes been wildly off base. Apple has temporarily turned off the AI summaries for news and entertainment apps after some people, and at least one news organization complained they were misleading.