The 4″ iPhone SE, based on the chassis of the iPhone 4 and 5 series, looks to be getting a significant update as soon as early as next month. The news is exciting for those who love the compact iPhone SE as it hasn’t been updated since 2016. While there is as much rumor as anything around the 2nd generation SE, it does look like a few things seem to be pretty solid.
First, spec-wise, it looks like the new SE is going to be powered by the Apple A10 SoC. That is the generation found in the iPhone 7 series and a significant bump up in speed, performance and power consumption over the current SE’s A9 SoC. It also looks like that the 3.5mm headphone jack is going to go the way of the Dodo. Instead, it will have the same headphones that were introduced with the iPhone 7 series which connect via the lightening connector.
A big question is if there will be a redesign of the chassis itself. Rumors point to the new iPhone SE being roughly based on the iPhone 6/7 chassis which means it could bump up from a 4″ screen to something slightly larger – 4.5″. That may not satisfy those who want a small form factor device but it would also be a welcome upgrade given the current SE has Bezels. For. Days.
What you can almost for sure count on is that the physical Home button will adopt that of the iPhone 7/8 which is touch only and doesn’t have the physical mechanism. This will allow for a thinner phone and frankly, would be more reliable.
Other rumors suggest that the new SE will have a glass back for Qi charging but that’s not substantiated.
So how much of this is real and how much is rumor? Well, right now, it is 100% rumor. There is nothing in FCC documentation pointing to a new SE coming along but as a general rule, the rumor mill for Apple tends to be more on target than off.
