There’s going to be something special about the iPhone 16e – Apple’s newest member of the family…mark my words!
I’ve ordered the iPhone 16e – and I’m genuinely interested about what’s going to land on my desk. Notice I said excited, but not necessarily interested in what’s about to land.
But there is going to be one defining point about this phone that it will be best remembered for – its crowning glory – and I’ll get to that a little later on.
On the face of it, there’s precious little new with the iPhone 16e which plays into one of Tim Cook’s and Apple’s strengths – and that is to re-use and recycle absolutely everything. Most aspects of this phone have, in one way or another, been seen on an iPhone or Apple device before, which offers up the question, who is the 16e aimed at? Who’ll be lining up (behind me) to buy it?
The iPhone 16e is now the ‘bargain’ iPhone and save for a few offers from third-parties, it’s the cheapest way for anyone to get into the new iPhone market. Apple has cunningly spaced out by exactly £100 the three key models that this newest iPhone sits amongst – the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 16.
Size isn’t everything
The days of small, and cheap iPhones are now a thing of the past, it seems.
We historically loved the iPhone 13 mini – yet nobody bought it, so Apple laid it to rest. Of those people that actually bought it, most said they loved it – but the numbers just didn’t add up for the numbers men at Apple HQ.
Since its launch, much has been made about the price of the iPhone 16e. Many had assumed, and hoped, that this phone would supersede the iPhone 3SE, but it’s now clear that was never Apple’s intention.
Although this new phone may iterate to a cheaper price much in the same way as iPads have done over the years, it looks unlikely we’ll ever see a new sub £450 iPhone again. There will no longer be a cheap iPhone – just a less expensive one.
By adding the 16e to the lineup, Apple has hit their brief of having a decent, pretty decent and really good iPhone to lure in punters. A true case of something for everyone.
Although this phone was built first and foremost to a price point, Apple has blatantly made the decision that they’re a premium brand, and if you want what they make, you’ll just have to pay what they ask.
Apple Intelligence and the iPhone 16e
Apple has swept through its range as quickly as possible to make certain that every new Mac and iPhone sold from this point forward is Apple Intelligence ready.
I think the only device that you can buy direct from Apple now without it being Apple Intelligence ready, is the most basic iPad – and that is due to be refreshed soon. The iPhone 16e wears the crown for being the cheapest iPhone that is Apple Intelligence ready.
Apart from the obvious reasons for that being important to Apple, they also know it’s pretty important to the targeted demographic for the iPhone 16e. The folks that are most likely to buy this phone aren’t in the slightest bit interested in upgrading every year and will intend to bleed this phone dry for as many years as possible.
Apple lives by data, and as such will know from the user history of SE phones, that the buyers of these phones will keep them for 5, 6, 7 years – or maybe even longer. These phones need to be durable and future-ready – and the iPhone 16e hits the mark on these critical points.
Sure, it only comes in the two basic colours, as again that suits the people that the phone is aimed at. Don’t lose sight of the fact that even though this phone can no longer be claimed to be cheap, it is the most basic iPhone – therefore form over function is what counts the most.
Built to a price
So in building the iPhone 16e to a price point, what sacrifices have been made? Quite a few, but most of them understandable – or at least explicable.
The cries for a new SE phone were fairly loud and not unheard by Apple. They knew, from listening, that old tech had to go – but the problem is new tech is more expensive. So, although they raided the parts bin, they do so selectively.
The panel was a component that simply had to go. I mean Apple gets slammed enough for selling phones that don’t have a 120Hz panel on them, so there was no way that a new phone sold in 2025 could only have a Retina HD panel. Nope, the iPhone 16e gets the same 6.1 inch OLED, edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR display as the 15 and 16.
Gone too is the Touch ID from the SE model – it’s now been, thankfully, replaced with Face ID. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but neither of these elements come cheap.
So having given us what we’d been asking for, what did they decide to leave off – and why?
Missing in action
The most notable omission is MagSafe charging.
I made a video about this phone last week, and the most common comment I had was about the fact that MagSafe charging had been left off the phone. Apple again will know how often SE users charged their phones via MagSafe and I assume saw that the uptake wasn’t that high.
So with MagSafe being an expensive unit, they obviously thought if you want MagSafe charging that much you could always buy a case. And for the record, they have included Qi charging on here – not quite the same, granted, but an option nonetheless.
You do get the Action Button which can be mapped to the launch Visual Intelligence (which I can’t even on my 16 Pro Max) but you don’t get the Dynamic Island – trade-offs remember! On here it’s still the good old notch I’m afraid.
Some less obvious bits-and-bobs missing to help keep the price down are Ultra Wideband, which means it isn’t FindMy compatible, and neither will it support the fastest 5G networks as it has no 5G mmWave.
That camera choice
The iPhone 16e only gets a single camera.
Although mine hasn’t arrived as I write this piece, from the pictures, I have to say it looks quite handsome with its slimmer profile. I’ve gotten so used to iPhones getting thicker each year as the cameras get bigger & better, that the slimmed down, more basic design quite appeals.
Again, I’ll come back to that same mantra – this phone isn’t for the geek and tech heads out there. If you know what LOG and ProRes are or regularly flick between the 24mm/28mm/35mm lenses on your iPhone – then the 16e isn’t for you.
This phone is squarely aimed at the point-and-shoot users – and to that end it will do the job. A 48MP camera with a 2x zoom is going to be just fine and dandy. I’m pretty sure when I get mine out of the box in London and spend the day shooting with it, I’ll be happy enough with the results.
And let’s not forget, I’m guessing that this phone will most often be used in normal situations – family days, holidays, restaurants and days out. I’ve no doubt that Apple’s 2-in-1 camera solution will be just fine.
The iPhone 16e’s legacy
At the beginning of this piece I mentioned that this phone – the iPhone 16e will be best remembered for one landmark moment.
That moment is the fact that this ‘cheapish’ little iPhone is the first ever device to carry an Apple born, bred and designed modem – Apple’s C1 chip. In pub quizzes in years to come this will be a trivia point to remember.
Out of the box, from day one, will it be as good as the Qualcomm modems that Apple currently uses? No, probably not, and that is why they are almost beta testing it in this phone. Apple will be looking into learning as much as they can from users’ experiences with this phone to help them progress at pace.
Apple showed us with Apple silicon what happens when they lean into something hard and flex their mighty power. For obvious reasons, the less they can be reliant on other suppliers and keep more and more under their control, the better it is for both them and us.
Apple can run a tighter ship and deliver on time all the time, and we will benefit from even better power and efficiency. This modem and future Apple modems will be built with one specific use in mind – to be used in Apple devices. Qualcomm modems are built on a more one-for-all basis. Apple, in time, will presumably, if they wanted, almost be able to assign a particular modem to a particular device – they could micro-manage it to thatextent.
As the first review units land in the real world, so the tear downs have started, and it looks as if we are getting a 3,961 mAh battery. This means the battery is bigger than the ones found in iPhone 16 (3,561 mAh) and iPhone 16 Pro (3,582) – and couple that with an Apple modem and the virtually un-binned A17 chip, and those claims of this phone having an amazing battery life may not be too far from the truth.
As Apple watches and gathers info about how we are using the modem and how it’s behaving, they will tailor its performance to match. Being their own modem, they could probably even set priority packets to best suit what you are asking of it at any point in time. When you’re in areas with limited reception that could be another massive step forward.
Mark my words, Apple modems will soon be in all iPhones, even the flagship ones – that will only leave the WiFi module left for them to conquer wouldn’t it?
Into the future
The iPhone 16e was pre-announced as a ‘new member to the family’ and later this year we’re expecting yet another sibling – the iPhone Air – Apple’s slimmest ever iPhone.
If that phone comes to be, odds are that will also have an Apple modem, and once they’ve mastered the slim phone market, Apple will then doubtless turn their attention to dominate the foldable section as well – slim is a natural lead on to foldable in my mind at least.
And as all this unfolds before us, more and more of it will be built, designed and engineered by Apple. Hardware, software and components all made by Apple. The leaker’s days could soon be numbered.
How the iPhone 16e performs physically and from a sales point of view, we’ll only find out in time. I’d imagine vast numbers of these 16e’s will be snapped up by corporates to hand out to employees – so the sales figures may almost be falsely buoyed by that, but in time we’ll start to build up a decent idea of what it’s really all about.
Either way though, as I said right at the start, I’m genuinely interested by this phone – and in particular by the C1 modem it’s packing.
It’s a good time to be an iPhone user…
