The Apple rumor mill is like the theatre of the absurd at the moment. We’ve been waiting for the iPhone SE 4 for three long years, and Bloomberg leaker Mark Gurman keeps popping up to announce that it’s launching within days… but it never arrives. It’s all rather reminiscent of Samuel Beckett, or of the bar near our office where there’s always free beer. Tomorrow.
Undaunted, Gurman promptly repeated his prediction: this week, the new iPhone will definitely arrive. And we’re pretty sure he’s right; after all, the other part of his prediction has already come true. Last Wednesday there was indeed a “smaller” announcement from Apple. In fact we got two: a new health study in the Research app, and the Apple TV app coming to Android and expanding the streaming service’s potential customer base. Neither of these is exactly a big deal, but we were warned.
What Gurman probably didn’t have on his radar was that the most successful Apple leaker would turn out to CEO Tim Cook himself. On X/Twitter/Xitter he revealed that a “new member of the family” would arrive on Wednesday, February 19. That sounds a lot like the new iPhone SE, although there are other ways of interpreting the Cupertino oracle.
Whatever the new family member turns out to be, we’re eagerly awaiting Wednesday and its announcements. The iPhone SE 4 actually is a big deal, deserving of a party, not just a press release. And not a bunch of undignified speculation about announcements this week, or next week, or a random Tuesday next year. But what can you do? The market always craves the new, and the media (including Macworld!) cannot resist puffing up what is probably a sensible but by no means revolutionary new smartphone into the eighth wonder of the world.
However, there are numerous reasons why the iPhone SE 4 will be a highly interesting device for customers and reporters alike. For one thing, since the start of 2025, Apple hasn’t had a budget iPhone on sale in the EU, after updated charging standards forced it to retire the Lightning-based iPhone SE 3 and iPhone 14. An expansion of Apple’s lower-end range is needed as quickly as possible.
What’s also interesting is that the iPhone SE 3 will be the last Apple device with a Home button, more than seven years after the iPhone X heralded the era of almost bezel-less iPhones with Face ID. But will customers accustomed to using the Home button finally switch over, or will many not be able to cope with Face ID and the new gestures? We shall see.
And last but not least, we’re interested in the wireless technology in the iPhone SE 4 (assuming that all the rumors we’ve heard are true). Almost ten years after Apple started a dispute with chip manufacturer Qualcomm over its licensing fees, the new device is expected to get a proprietary wireless chip. As with other components it’s learned to build for itself, Apple first had to bring the expertise in-house, in this case in the form of Intel’s modem division. But the benefits should be worth it.
So we have every reason to look forward to the iPhone SE 4. But why does Apple always have to keep us in suspense?