On 21st March 2016, Apple hosted a keynote, of which the point was to announce new products.
After about 30 minutes of blabbering on about renewable energy and research, they finally got around to announcing things. Firstly they announced that they are lowering the price of the sports version of the apple watch to just $299/£259, and wait for it… They’ve made some new straps too! The new iPhone SE was the second announcement, which is the latest iPhone that will have all the good stuff of the 6S, but back in the 4” size.
From 24th March 2016, you will once again be able to hold in your hands a reasonably sized phone that actually works well! The iPhone SE will run on the same A9 64-bit chip processor as the iPhone 6S. It claims to have a battery life of up to 12 hours of video and up to 50 hours of audio and will be available to purchase with either 16GB or 64GB of storage. It has a 12-megapixel camera that can also capture video in 4k and will also be able to shoot the new live photo feature that was introduced into the iPhone 6. It will come in 4 colours; Grey, Space Grey, Gold, and Rose Gold. The price is something quite big for Apple as it is actually the most affordable phone they have released to date – starting at just $399/£359.
It is very obvious that Apple have just adapted and worked off of the design of the iPhone 5 and 5S. However, they did have a good reason for it. When the iPhone 5 was first released back in 2013 it was a big change for Apple. It was a lot slimmer than the previous model the iPhone 4/4S, and also longer, allowing for a new row of apps to fit on the screen. Although Apple made the phone bigger, they had also made it lighter. It was a lot nicer to hold than the previous model and more durable as it had an aluminium backing instead of the glass backing. The iPhone 5 was the first phone they released with a custom processor and the “Lightning” connector. It was a design that didn’t really have any competitors on the market at the time of release. When the iPhone 6 was released it almost felt like a step back, as the design of it wasn’t as revolutionary as the iPhone 5. It seemed that all they had done was round off the edges and make it bigger.
I personally think that this phone will do quite well, I know that I am still holding onto my iPhone 5S,reluctant to change to a bigger phone, but it’s coming to a time that we are going to have to forget that phones once fit in our hands and our pockets. Maybe this will be something that pushes other companies to start compressing their phones. It is starting to get to the point where we are questioning “How big will they make phones?”. Are we going to end up just holding tablets up to our face to answer calls?