Apple today unveiled its latest smartphone, the 4-inch iPhone SE, at an event at company headquarters in Cupertino, California.
With its straight edges, the device bears a resemblance to the iPhone 5s, which came out in 2013 (and which itself looked very similar to 2012’s iPhone 5). But the guts of the device are close to those of the iPhone 6s, which Apple released six months ago: It’s got an A9 chip, an M9 motion coprocessor, Touch ID, always-on Hey Siri, a 12-megapixel iSight back camera that can record 4K video with two-tone flash and Focus Pixels, and support for Apple Pay.
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Of course, the phone is running iOS 9.3. There’s support for Live Photos, too. A retina flash is on the front camera. And there’s faster LTE speeds. And a stainless steel Apple logo on the back.
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“Many, many customers have asked for this, and I think they’re really going to love it,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said of the iPhone SE.
The 16GB iPhone SE starts at $399, and the 64GB model starts at $499.
Apple will start taking orders for it on March 24, and devices will begin shipping on March 31.
In addition to coming out with its latest iPhone, today Apple is also refreshing its iPad line, with a new iPad Pro that’s smaller than the first one Apple unveiled in September, and it’s also bringing out new Apple Watch accessories.
As shown today, the iPhone SE lines up with some descriptions of the phone that have leaked in the past few weeks, particularly including 9to5Mac‘s March 17 article describing it as “almost exactly the same” as the 5s. The product is not called the iPhone 5se, as 9to5Mac had originally reported back in January, or the iPhone 6c, for that matter.
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More on the iPhone SE is here.
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