Next Year’s ‘Budget’ iPhone 17 Could Cut Fewer Corners
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Apple upended its budget iPhone category this year with the iPhone 16e, creating a successor to the iPhone SE that no longer feels nearly as much like the red-headed stepchild in the family. Instead, it’s more like the awkward little brother.
Unlike its spiritual ancestor, the iPhone 16e fits into the rest of the lineup remarkably well. It looks and feels almost like an iPhone 16, but it still has a few noticeable touches that make it clear that it doesn’t quite belong.
Sure, it has a single camera, but that’s to be expected on the entry-level model — at least in Apple’s world. However, the iPhone 16e still followed the iPhone SE playbook a bit too closely. The first two iPhone SE models followed the design of their 2.5-year-old predecessors — the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 8 — and the iPhone 16e does the same with the iPhone 14.
Most significantly, that means it maintains the unsightly notch at the top of the screen rather than adopting the more modern Dynamic Island. In the months leading up to the release of the new iPhone — back when we all still thought it would be another iPhone SE — there was much debate about whether we’d see the Dynamic Island or another notch. The latter made sense for a low-cost iPhone that was going to follow the design of the older model, but it would also make it more of an outlier in an era when Apple had embraced the Dynamic Island throughout the rest of the lineup.
So, it was pretty surprising when the new model turned out to bear the number 16 and still sported the notch instead of the Dynamic Island. Nevertheless, there was a silver lining in the decision to brand it as the “iPhone 16e” rather than the “iPhone SE” — it implied that perhaps this wouldn’t be on yet another 2–4 year cycle before we’d see a replacement.
That meant that we wouldn’t be stuck with any decisions Apple made for this year’s entry-level iPhone. If the iPhone e-series models end up on an annual release cycle, the next model — an “iPhone 17e” — can adopt a more modern design and easily leave this weird transitional era behind.
Only two weeks after the iPhone 16e debuted, rumors were already circulating of an iPhone 17e in the works, and they’ve been gaining steam ever since. Early on, we knew little more than that one would be coming in early 2026, but new leaks this week suggest that Apple plans to give the next-generation iPhone e-series some significant design updates.
Earlier today, well-known leaker “Digital Chat Station” shared more information on Weibo as to what we can expect from the iPhone 17e. While some of their predictions are table stakes for Apple’s entry-level model — a A19 chip and a 60 Hz screen are both a given, for instance — the pleasantly surprising part is that they claim Apple will ditch the notch and adopt the Dynamic Island.
That’s probably not as surprising as it sounds at first, as the iPhone 17e would come 2.5 years after the iPhone 15, which was the first standard model to gain the Dynamic Island. Everything else is expected to remain essentially the same, including a 6.1-inch screen with a 60 Hz refresh rate and a front-facing 12-megapixel camera, but those would also reflect iPhone 15-era specs.
Perhaps the biggest question, which the leaker doesn’t answer, is whether Apple will still omit MagSafe. The faster magnetic charging has been standard on the rest of its numbered iPhone families since 2020; although the 2020 and 2022 iPhone SE both excluded it, they also had designs that were based on the iPhone 8, which was the first model to introduce any form of wireless charging.
Like the iPhone SE that it (sort of) replaced, the iPhone 16e also conspicuously lacks the Ultra Wideband chip that’s been around in every other model since the iPhone 11. This leaves it out of features like precision finding for AirTags and friends, certain Car Key and Home Key features, and proximity-based Handoff for HomePods.
Digital Chat Station has a reasonably good track record when it comes to leaks, and this one isn’t exactly a risky prediction, as the safe money would be on seeing the notch go away in the next model. Multiple sources now concur that we will see an iPhone 17e early next year, in what Apple likely hopes will become an annual event, so much so that it might even pair its launch with the standard iPhone 18 in 2027, releasing only its higher-end models in September and saving the lower-end versions for the spring.
[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.]
