iPhone 17e Release Date Leaked: Apple’s New Budget Phone May Be Coming Soon

While the jury is still out on when we’ll see the new M5 Pro/Max MacBooks, Apple still has at least one other product in store for a release this month: the iPhone 17e.

We’ve already heard several reports of a February launch for the iPhone 17e, but that’s not really a tough call. Apple unveiled its debut e-series model, the iPhone 16e, last February 19, so it’s an obvious time for its successor to show up.

The only argument against a repeat of a February timeframe was that some believed the iPhone 16e was released earlier than usual to fill a void in Europe after Apple was forced to pull the Lightning-equipped iPhone SE and iPhone 14 off shelves a few weeks earlier when the USB-C mandate came into effect. That may have been true, but January and February have often been relatively dry months for Apple launches, so there’s no reason Apple couldn’t use the opportunity to start a new trend of lining up new products earlier in the calendar year.

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Now, a new report from Halyna Kubiv at Germany’s MacWelt (also published on the English Macworld) is claiming that Apple will actually celebrate the anniversary of the iPhone 16e by launching its successor precisely a year later — on February 19, 2026.

That date lands on a Thursday this year, which would be a rather unusual weekday for Apple to unveil a new product, but it’s not like it’s never happened before, and the iPhone 17e isn’t exactly a major product release — an Apple Newsroom announcement is likely to be as much fanfare as it gets.

Apple has also shown an uncanny trend toward quietly celebrating anniversary dates in recent years; the M3 and M4 MacBook Pro lineups were unveiled on October 30, 2023 and October 30, 2024, respectively, and while the Apple Watch Series 10 may not have been the revolutionary upgrade some were expecting, it was unveiled on September 9, 2024 — ten years to the day of the original Apple Watch unveiling in 2014.

What to Expect from the iPhone 17e

As with the iPhone SE models that were its spiritual predecessors, last year’s iPhone 16e was an interesting hybrid of new and old Apple technology. It pressed forward more than any previous budget iPhone model had by adopting a design language much closer to the iPhone 16, along with modern features like the Action button and an advanced single-camera system. However, it also used the screen from the iPhone 14 — notch and all — and lacked MagSafe, an Ultra Wideband chip, and wired video output (which is also conspicuously absent from the iPhone Air).

This has led to more speculation than usual about what we can expect from the iPhone 17e. For instance, many believe that Apple will replace the notch with a Dynamic Island. The iPhone 16e has become the only iPhone on the market to still sport that legacy screen design, making it a weird outlier for the modern Apple user experience. However, that was largely left in because it was based on the iPhone 14 and used the same display. The theory is that the iPhone 17e will move up to use iPhone 15 panels, which include the Dynamic Island.

While that sounds very reasonable in light of Apple’s typical playbook — every iPhone SE borrowed its design from the 2.5-year-old prior model — the latest leaks believe that we’re still going to see a notch on this year’s model. Maybe Apple simply hasn’t run out of stock of its iPhone 14 displays yet, or they’re simply that much cheaper to make than the iPhone 15 ones.

Both MacWelt and Japan’s Mac Otakara predict that the iPhone 17e will be virtually identical in physical design to its predecessor, with only under-the-hood changes — and relatively predictable ones, at that.

This includes a move to the A19 processor from the iPhone 17, the latest C1X 5G modem chip used in the iPhone Air, and the new Apple N1 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip. Since the iPhone 16e had an A18 and debuted the C1 5G modem, and the N1 chip is now standard across all iPhones, it would be more surprising if the iPhone 17e didn’t include these upgrades.

In other words, the iPhone 17e sounds like it will largely be a spec-bump that continues to echo the ghost of the iPhone 14. Maybe that’s what the “e” actually stands for, but it’s hardly surprising, as nobody really expects Apple’s most affordable iPhone to do anything revolutionary.

Still, Apple is already breaking new ground with the e-series. This will mark the first time we’ve seen two budget models released only a year apart. The closest Apple came before this was with the 2020 and 2022 iPhone SE, and the latter of those was also a minor spec-bump intended to update the A-series chip and add 5G support.

That said, there is one iPhone 17e upgrade that could make a difference. While Mac Otakara is silent on this, industry sources have told Kubiv at MacWelt that this year’s model will include MagSafe. That echoes a December report from The Information, placing good odds on that being the biggest improvement in this year’s iPhone 17e.

To be clear, this wouldn’t just be a magnetic attachment — you can already get that by adding a case — it would also boost the wireless charging speeds to as much as 25W, which is a significant boost from the 7.5W Qi speeds supported on the iPhone 16e.

If these reports hold true, the iPhone 17e may still be echoing the design of the iPhone 14, but at least the addition of MagSafe will make it finally ready to snap into the modern era. Either way, we shouldn’t have to wait much longer to find out.

Rumored Specs: iPhone 16e vs. iPhone 17e

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]