The 5G iPhone SE will be for carriers, not customers

Apple is widely expected to release a new iPhone SE model this week, the company’s third — and its quickest update yet for its cheapest line of smartphones.

Apple’s release cycle for the SE line is accelerating: the original iPhone SE was released in 2016 as an entry-level option for the iPhone lineup, priced at just $399 — compared to the $649 iPhone 6s model that preceded it a few months before. The second-generation model followed four years later, in 2020.

Now, just two years later, Apple is preparing to release its third-generation iPhone SE, one that’s rumored to offer broadly the same design as the 2020 SE, but with an upgraded processor and camera from the 2020 model, along with 5G.

And it’s that final detail — the addition of 5G — that seems to reveal why Apple is upgrading the iPhone SE this early: it’s an upgrade for the carriers, not the customers.

5G STILL ISN’T A REVOLUTION IN 2022

While 5G isn’t worthless, in 2022, it’s not the revolutionary, must-have technology that cell carriers are pitching it as. Speeds are still lackluster in most cases, requiring very specific conditions with mmWave networks or the still-nascent mid-band networks that most of the US’s main carriers are still struggling to roll out. Several years in, and 5G is still more a marketing note than a revolutionary change to how most people use the internet on the go.

Main Image: 9to5Mac