Apple announces a new iPhone SE with a 4.7" display, A13, Touch ID, 12MP camera with portrait mode, 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB storage from $399, shipping April 24
It looks like an iPhone 8, but it has more modern specs — Apple has officially announced the new iPhone SE …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second time Apple has used the SE name to recycle proven hardware into a cheap flagship-chip phone: the original 2016 iPhone SE paired a 4-inch body with iPhone 6S internals at the same $399 entry price. The 2020 version repeats the formula at larger scale — an iPhone 8-style body with Touch ID, the A13 chip, and storage doubled up to 256GB, matching what Kuo leaked in October 2019 almost exactly.
What makes it matter is cadence: two years later Apple shipped a 5G iPhone SE with an A15 for $429, confirming this was not a one-off inventory play but a standing low-cost tier that gets refreshed and creeps upward in price.
First-order effects
- Buyers get current-generation A13 performance, portrait-mode photography, and up to 256GB in a $399 device shipping April 24 — the cheapest new iPhone Apple sells by a wide margin.
- Apple keeps Touch ID alive in the lineup at a moment when its flagship iPhones had moved past the home-button design, giving holdout users a sanctioned path.
Second-order effects
- Android vendors competing in the $300–500 band now face a device with flagship-class silicon at $399, pressuring their own mid-range pricing and spec sheets.
- Every SE sale seeds the installed base that Apple monetizes through services and future upgrades, making the cheap hardware a funnel rather than a margin story.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — 2016, 2020, then the 2022 model at $429 — the SE hardens into a permanent product line with predictable refreshes and steady price inflation, structurally splitting Apple's iPhone business into premium and entry tiers rather than treating low-cost as an occasional clearance exercise.
The trend: Apple is institutionalizing the iPhone SE as a recurring budget tier that carries last-generation flagship chips forward, with Touch ID retained and prices creeping from $399 toward $429 across generations.