Apple Debuts iPhone 16e
apple.com
apple.com
> iPhone 16e has the best battery life ever on a 6.1-inch iPhone, lasting up to six hours longer than iPhone 11 and up to 12 hours longer than all generations of iPhone SE.
Their page comparing models claims the new 16e gets "26 hours video playback."
iPhone 16e: 26 hours
iPhone 16: 22 hours
iPhone 15: 20 hours
iPhone 14: 20 hours
iPhone 13: 19 hours
iPhone 12: 17 hours
iPhone 11: 17 hours
> Expanding the benefits of Apple silicon, C1 is the first modem designed by Apple and the most power-efficient modem ever on an iPhone, delivering fast and reliable 5G cellular connectivity. Apple silicon — including C1 — the all-new internal design, and the advanced power management of iOS 18 all contribute to extraordinary battery life.
Can you give some examples? I'd like to test one out but I'm not buying the most recent product as a rule.
(Yes, the phone expensive now, but these SE-tier phones typically get discounts pretty quickly after release through carriers/non-apple retail; and then a bigger & formal sale price decrease when the next phone generation comes out.)
The C1 modem gets a line because Wall Street has seen that expense for a decade now, so this is a “win” for them. Battery chemistry is completely 3rd party, so they’ll claim the battery life improvement
Putting the new modem into the new "budget" phone reduces expectations so that the impact of any issues will be blunted. Only when all the problems have been ironed out, that will be when the mainstream iPhones will get the new modem.
They acquired part of Intel and worked on this for many years. Shareholders want to know what the result of all that money and time was.
"Inside Apple’s Spectacular Failure to Build a Key Part for Its New iPhones"
>The 2018 marching orders from Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook to design and build a modem chip—a part that connects iPhones to wireless carriers—led to the hiring of thousands of engineers. The goal was to sever Apple’s grudging dependence on Qualcomm, a longtime chip supplier that dominates the modem market. The obstacles to finishing the chip were largely of Apple’s own making, according to former company engineers and executives familiar with the project. Apple had planned to have its modem chip ready to use in the new iPhone models. But tests late last year found the chip was too slow and prone to overheating. Its circuit board was so big it would take up half an iPhone, making it unusable.
https://kanebridgenews.com/inside-apples-spectacular-failure... [2023]
And even CPUs (esp state of art) have to worry about radio effects, as in avoiding internally and across chipset.
Easy to believe radios would be an order of magnitude harder, what with the ancient proprietary standards and actual physical radio stuff. (The closest CPUs get is serdes and in my experience those are bought in from Synopsys et al.)
It is a ridiculous amount of work and if you're new to the business, it takes a long time just to be build the lab test suite. And you need to support not just the latest and greatest protocols but also legacy ones. The operators have their own say and test labs as well and they all have slightly different setups and requirements.
> And even CPUs (esp state of art) have to worry about radio effects, as in avoiding internally and across chipset.
Radio effect are rarely an issue with regular chips. Crosstalk within a chip only happens between wires that are within hundreds of nanometers separated from each other.
I'm an amateur, so welcome correction with this, but I'm also not convinced. For one example, ref this RFI mitigation with Intel's gen 12 processors: https://edc.intel.com/content/www/cn/zh/design/ipla/software...
The hard part is designing a good modem while also unambiguously working around all the Qualcomm patents in all the jurisdictions that have iPhone, which is all of them.
Because if you don’t do that, you’re still paying Qualcomm which defeats an important purpose of making your own modem.
[0] Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory. Each one of those words has a funny legal definition separate from whatever English you're thinking of.
[1] Who, incidentally, sold Apple the modem division that made the C1, because Intel is nothing but a bottomless pit of bad management decisions
As the reply below, Apple still has to pay its SEP. Given Apple has its current deal with Qualcomm until 2027 with time to extend further we likely won't know the full details. Previously it was 5% of Wholesale price for all Qualcomm patents whether they are SEP, wireless or not. With a cap or maximum $20 per smartphone meaning the Pro range don't have to pay a lot more. And rebate towards the modem Apple purchase. The reality after deducting rebate Apple was paying closer to 5%. For reference Ericsson ask for 3% on 5G SEP, previous Cory ruling suggest reality was closer to 2%.
A baseband is a really fancy specialized SDR. Most are based on arcane VLIW DSP architectures like Qualcomm’s Hexagon or Samsung Marconi - you’ll usually have several DSPs handling the different physical layer channels, and then some coordinating DSPs doing L1 channel mixing and timing (in 4G and 5G, various logical and transport channels are muxed into the same physical channels).
Then a set of higher level processor cores (usually referred to as CP, sometimes still a DSP but often a general purpose application processor like ARM) will handle the MAC and above. There will be occasional fixed function blocks for some common protocol functions, but generally it’s less “analog magic” in the way people think when they hear “radio” and more “DSP magic.”
Seems like the difficult part is doing that effectively while avoiding IP issues -- patents on software and math have entrenched Qualcomm's dominance.
Imagine if all of the IP for ML or AI were held by a single company that got the regulating body (ITU/3GPP) to require their use. Makes a mockery of FRAND terms.
Building a cellular modem, complete with working protocol stack, entirely in software has been done as a 1 person open source project.
Making a production -ready modem is clearly more complex, but far from hard for a company with the resources of Apple.
However, doing so whilst not violating any of qualcomms huge array of patents is the real challenge.
I'm willing to bet that the release date of this phone probably closely aligns with the expiry date of a patent they couldn't work around.
Same with the GPU except that was later on - it was a licensed PowerVR IP until Apple started using their own custom GPU from the A11.
It's the opposite, AArch64 was designed by ARM in order to produce their CPUs.
Nobody will use a phone company that doesn't work with iPhones.
If there are reports of iPhones failing to work reliably from Kansas City to Kuala Lumpur then it would be unlikely to be the operators being blamed here.
A modem, well nobody's going to help them build one of those; it'd put them out of business - ARM's business _is_ selling access to its body of work.
Look ma, no magnets!
I half suspect you're trolling based on this and your other comments under this post, but in case you're not, the Magsafe charger specs state they are Qi compatible.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX6X3LL/A/magsafe-charger...
> The MagSafe Charger is compatible with Qi2 and Qi charging, so it can be used to
> wirelessly charge your iPhone 8 or later, as well as AirPods models with a wireless
> charging case, as you would with any Qi2 or Qi-certified charger.
I paid $25 for something from China. It took a month to arrive, but it works great.
(See also: https://www.proclipusa.com/pages/product-finder)
I was pretty close to picking up the new SE4 to replace my iPhone 14 Pro and I'm balking at the lack of MagSafe on top of the $599 pricetag.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX6X3LL/A/magsafe-charger...
Using a case with the magnet ring in it solves this problem for the 16e without the ring in the phone itself.
You’ll need to answer for yourself: more battery life or MagSafe?
All batteries degrade when you subject them to 1000 full recharge cycles.
I understand that. My point being that 25 year old tech, before the real miniatyrization of circuits and power efficiency mind you, has 7x charge time and yet we are impressed by a few additional hours.
> Here is an experiment to try. Use your phone as you currently do, but turn on airplane mode when you aren't otherwise using the phone. Leave it on overnight too.
Sure but to what benefit?
I already addressed the tweaks i did do in a sibling comment. Putting the phone in airplane mode is no different than having a dead battery in terms of usability.
This is stuff your Nokia didn’t do at the same scale. At best some sms at a significantly reduced polling rate.
My apps auto update in the background. Something my Nokia from 2007 didn’t do.
So there are many passively provided features but by definition they are not obvious to you and as such harder to appreciate.
If you have an iPhone: I use low power mode constantly. I have an automation to use it at 75% or less battery.
I get roughly 2 days of battery life without any YouTube usage.
SMS was piggybacked onto the control plane messaging. That is why the limit was 160 chars (only space available) and why texts can still work when the cell towers are overloaded.
Yes because those phones by comparison do nothing so it’s a meaningless comparison.
It’s like arguing that we shouldn’t be impressed about EV range improvements because the bicycle exists.
We were able to call with them and send messages. On top of that I mostly use browser with my current phone on comparison, while not necessary.
Acting like physics doesn’t exist and we should be able to get a month long battery life whilst doing all of the above is idiotic. No other way to describe it.
I see it got you riled up for some reason, but I cannot see why.
Well, it's about the same as using Nokia 3310.
Odd. I wonder if you have some apps updating in the background a lot.
Both my personal and my work iPhones are two-years-old, and both will last several days even with audio streaming.
I put my work phone in its drawer last Thursday, and when I took it out on Tuesday, it still had 11% left.
The drop down menu doesn't actually disable bluetooth so that alone won't work.
It'd usually last around 2 weeks with data off. I imagine an iPhone would fare even better.
Part of it is certainly the modem, but part of it is also likely to be the larger battery.
I'm really curious to see both how the Apple C1 performs and also how they changed up the internals for a larger battery and how much larger that battery is.
Lots of people are mad about losing magsafe but in magsafe phones the magnets sit flush with the frame in a huge circular cutout just below the back glass. The hole weakens the frame so the frame has to be thicker because of it.
I don't think there is really a world where this phone gets 6 more hours of battery life while still having magsafe and fitting into the existing shape of the iPhone 14.
It can easily be measured from the time required to fully charge the phone (when turned off), and continuously monitoring the power it draws from the charger.
The exact mAh is only secret until the first non-Apple person who wants to know gets one.
According to reports, the 16e has a slightly smaller battery than the iPhone 16. 3279 mAh in the 16e vs. 3561 mAh in the 16.
There would be manufacturing differences that would induce at least some variation from phone-to-phone.
[1] https://www.mysmartprice.com/gear/mobiles/mobiles-news/apple...
But given that the cameras got swapped out for a single lens, the MagSafe magnets were removed, etc, it’s certainly conceivable that they freed up space internally for a larger battery in the 16e!
Otherwise what would a video playback time spec have to do with the efficiency of the cellular radio?
The surprise is how much power that is. It's either that or misleading marketing. I know Apple struggled to make this modem, so maybe it's still not great when it comes to standby power consumption. Since it's Apple we will only know after quite a bit of independent testing...
Cellular modems are constantly reading and broadcasting messages to the cellular network unless they are explicitly turned off
Turning off your modem is second only to turning off your screen if you’re looking to save battery
When actively receiving data, a cellular modem will use significantly more power than when idle, with the exact amount depending on factors like network strength, data rate, and the specific modem technology, but typically ranging from several hundred milliwatts to a few watts
Your phrasing requires prior knowledge of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. It's also defining an interval without giving context to whether that interval is meaningful, where on the interval the 16e exists, and if any of the preceding are meaningful. The increased precision comes at the cost of conciseness and clarity.
Apple's, on the other hand, tells me that this is the best battery life an iPhone has had in this form factor. No unnecessary priors being pulled; I just need to know if I like a 6.1" screen.
However at $599, higher than the rumoured $499 or $549 pricing. iPhone 14 previously at $599 and iPhone SE at $429 are now gone. Getting rid of iPhone 14 and iPhone SE as they are both using Lightning and not USB-C.
The lineup is a little strange. Will iPhone 15, currently at $699 dropped to $599 when they announce iPhone 17?
The most interesting part is of course the Modem. We will have to wait and see how it perform.
800 nits typical brightness vs. 1000 for the 16, 1200 nits maximum brightness vs. 1600–2000 nits.
Notch vs. dynamic island, of course.
Qi2 is based on Magsafe.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/3/23538131/qi2-wireless-char...
That's an insult to all of the engineering that went into Qi.
The Magsafe specification was an attempt to create the new Lightning connector ecosystem that backfired spectacularly and blew up in Apple's face. It's nothing more than magnets and DRM layered on top of a regular Qi charger.
Naturally Apple used the DRM to limit the charging speeds of their phones when paired with regular Qi chargers. There's a practical reason for this which is how Apple tried to justify their outrageous licensing fee to implement Magsafe.
Unfortunately for Apple, manufacturers mostly said no to Magsafe licensing and Apple's user based complained to Apple that their phones wouldn't charge at the rated speeds of the Qi chargers they bought.
This put Apple in an awkward position where they could tell their users to only buy MagSafe devices, compromise on safety to appease users, or give up on Magsafe being proprietary. Thankfully they chose the later.
Qi2 isn't Magsafe, Qi2 incorporated Magsafe because it improves the standard.
Don't let Apple marketing fool you into thinking Apple is doing this altruistically.
> With the blessing of competitors, Apple is about to change the Qi wireless standard itself. It’s contributing to a new version of Qi that works much like MagSafe — magnets, authentication, and all.
Your statement implies that Qi2 used Magsafe as a starting point or that it's primarily based on Magsafe. Your statement is inaccurate and would lead people to think that Qi2 was mostly an Apple design.
It's subjective how important the history is and how important Apple's contributions are, but that seems to be what they were getting at.
You'd be wrong, though. Apple is on the WPC membership and has heavy influence over their spec definitions. They do this with many standards. They sit on the standards body as contributing members, and influence the specifications in ways they see as beneficial. They did this with USB (especially USB-C), they do this with MIPI standards, and they do this with WPC.
When standards organizations move too slow (which, is pretty much always), companies like Apple will move to make proprietary versions of a thing usually based on drafts of standards that are taking too long.
Next time you merge any pull request into your project (especially a tiny one adjusting some UI spacing), should I come on Hacker News and repeatedly insist you had nothing to do with the project's development and the person who wrote that PR really deserves all the credit? That's the metaphor cptskippy was using. You're making it out to be a "ship of Theseus" situation when it's not.
No MagSafe here
In addition, they are said to have replaced the WiFi/Bluetooth chip with one developed in-house.
> Apple Inc.’s ambitious plan to create in-house components for its devices will include switching to a homegrown chip for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections starting next year, a move that will replace some parts currently provided by Broadcom Inc.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-12/apple-nea...
The rumors called out improved battery life as an upside.
They did make some noise about enabling Swift for embedded development at last years WWDC.
Although Qualcomm's big zero day last year was related to the DSP and not the baseband, I believe.
Memory safe languages don't protect from human programmer complacency and stupidity, or from incidental alphabet agency backdoors.
> According to the patch instructions, the fix works by adding direct memory access handle references.
https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/366612994/Hig...
Don’t guarantee complete safety but do eliminate a massive attack surface
I swear if they wrote a modem from scratch in C that’s a major own goal
E.g.: https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/details/200579953/embedded-5g-4...
> One major development snag involves the software used to power the modem, some of which was acquired from Intel. The Intel code wasn’t up to the task, and most of it had to be rewritten from scratch, people involved in the project said. As Apple engineers sought to add new features, existing capabilities would break, and the modem wouldn’t work properly.
Don't limit yourself ...
PowerShell to the rescue:
$ie = New-Object -ComObject internetexplorer.application; $ie.Navigate("https://sidetalking.com/original/"); $ie.Visible = $trueThey have Macs they call Macbook Airs, but their Macbooks look like "Air" Macbooks, they really should have swapped the names on those models long ago.
First place, obviously, goes to the Toshiba Libretto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_Duo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_2400c
Wow - how was I impressed with a laptop "only" weighing 2kg?!
Regarding your second one, I have some good news though: ASUS Zenfone 10 is smaller than iPhone 16 by 1.1mm x 3.5mm, Samsung S24 (base model) is 0.6mm x 1.0mm smaller, and Sony Xperia 5 V is only slightly bigger.
But the Sony suggested is slightly bigger than the iPhone 16 in 2/3 of the dimensions and this comment thread is lamenting how big the iPhone 16 is! I think people who see the iPhone 16 as so large it is not an option are unlikely to consider switching to Android for an even larger phone.
It's a shame, because Sony used to make smaller phones with only slightly lower specs than their flagship phones. I also still associate them with making sensibly-sized alternatives, even though they don't anymore.
There really isn't anything mainstream out there at all. Why? Majority, clear majority, of people rejected smaller size phones sadly.
It makes the phone less durable for a useless screen size, its pocket ability isn't much better because it is just bulkier (easier to enter in small pockets, but bigger deformation and feel) and it's just less convenient because you have to open it anytime you want to use it.
There is no replacement for a small phone, some manufacturer has to do it.
I think Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble, has decided he will have a go at an iPhone 13 mini sized android phone, since nothing exists in that space anymore.
Android rather than iPhone, but I've also recently given up hoping Apple would release a small phone. I recently bought a used iPhone 13 mini when my minor-regret-sized SE 2022 started playing up and I saw that all the rumours pointed at this 16E being huge.
You see this in telecom a lot.
Another aspect that I think is often missed is that the Mini physically cannot offer the same battery life as other iPhones. Many say they don't mind this, but over time as the battery life deteriorates, it becomes a pain point all the same. I think that is another aspect of why they don't like the small form factor.
The Toyota Corolla sells 1 million units a year worldwide - it's totally practical and realistic to set up a production line to make 1 million devices a year.
Apple sells 200 million iphones a year.
That's why they're happy to make the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max and 16e and offer them in 4-5 colours per model as well.
It's something else - probably sales.
If they can standardise those, they might end up with an easier OS to maintain once the Mini (sadly) is no longer supported
Even repair/replace is improving, with new aftermarket storage upgrades for Macbooks.
I think this is really "peak Apple" era. Most stuff they did after Jobs death is re-heated or poorly designed/conceived.
Apple is just a luxury brand nowadays because they have lost focus on the user, it's a bit maddening that they are getting so rich from it but I guess that's how it is...
I plan to use it, until I need to charge the battery every 15 minutes.
I also write software for these beasties, and it may well be that I won't be able to justify avoiding getting one that has Apple Intelligence.
I'm still hanging on to my perfectly working iPhone 7, while app developers tell me to fuck off left and right. It does everything I want a phone to do, but developers consider "old phones" to be icky and stop supporting them.
https://blog.bschwind.com/2025/01/11/the-original-iphone-se-...
However, these days, I usually release with minimum support beginning with iOS 16, because I am a one-man shop.
My stuff will usually run in 15, though.
With very little skill, I found I could duplicate this issue on my iPhone 7 running the latest supported version of iOS: https://joshua.hu/apple-ios-patched-unpatched-vulnerabilitie...
The larger phones barely fit in pockets, fit poorly in running packs/biking gear and are just generally inconvienient for being active with them.
In other words whatever size the audience is for a mini phone they are further fragmented into people who want a flagship phone vs mid range phone vs budget phone.
And those market segments are too small to make it worth Apple or even most android manufacturers effort.
I have a 13 mini and will use it until it dies...just like the SE before it.
I still have apple care+ on mine. I knew they will probably never make a new one again. I use it without a case, so when I drop it break the screen or something, I just get an express replacement. There is a small fee ($100 or something) and I basically get a brand new iPhone mini. Hopefully their replacement stock last for a while.
I consider this a feature
If I sound like I'm trying to influence you're decision, my apologies! I really disliked the size of the SE 2022, which I bought to replace the last really good Apple phone (SE 2016), and that was much smaller than the 16e. I should have gone straight to the 13 mini - I was put off by no bezels, Face ID, and I guess like a sucker I wanted to buy another SE because I liked the one I had so much. :)
Source:
Google shipped about 10 million Pixel phones in a year https://9to5google.com/2024/02/22/pixel-2023/
iPhone Mini accounted for about 3% of iPhone sales https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/21/cirp-iphone-13-best-selling-l...
iPhones sell about 200 million units per year https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/
200 million * 0.03 = 6 million iPhone Minis per year
Small phones are also difficult. Memory, processors, and batteries don't shrink. For an iPhone mini, they're going to be shipping essentially the same chips taking up the same amount of space. That space is going to have to come at the expense of things like the battery and cooling. It's a lot easier to engineer something with looser tolerances. If you have a giant phone, it's easy to have extra room to keep the phone cool and stuff in a battery.
It also probably meant limiting some choices for the rest of the iPhone lineup. Apple wants to be able to re-use components and to some extent it's going to mean that Apple either has to make choices that work for both a 6.1" and 5.4" form factor or do separate things.
There is some demand for an iPhone mini. I love the iPhone mini. I also see the challenge for Apple.
I think there's also a reason why we haven't seen a successful Android mini phone. It's hard to make a mini phone and the sales numbers are comparatively small.
But maybe we'll see an iPhone mini in a few years time. If Apple can create an integrated CPU/modem/WiFi/Bluetooth chip, that could end up saving a decent amount of space while also reducing power requirements. Maybe we'll be able to go SIM-less around the world and that could save space.
At the same time, it's hard to make the same number of people make another, more challenging form factor and it's hard to scale out with more people too. Plus, do you put your best engineers on the hardest project (the mini) when it's only 3% of sales? Or do you hire new, less experienced, possibly lower skilled people for that and hope you don't put out a product that isn't good?
It's a tough challenge for a tiny amount of sales which, ultimately, aren't going to decide to leave Apple for Android where they also can't get a small phone.
Advances in tech should allow phones to be smaller than ever for the same capabilities, or more capabilities for the same size than ever before.
I don't doubt that the average phone has grown in size, the base iPhone has stayed roughly the same size for 7 years at this point. The 16 is only 0.15"x0.03"x0.01" larger than the iPhone X from 2017 and the base iPhone peaked in height and width all the way back in 2019 with the iPhone 11.
I think the simple answer is that they've pretty much found the sweet spot and even if there are people out there who want a smaller phone, most of them would still rather have the same size phone with more capability.
I could't care less what size other people use, and I use social media maybe half an hour a day, if that. The regular sized iPhones are the happy size for my older eyes and thumbs.
While true of a company like Samsung I don't think this explains the lack of a small iPhone. Apple is only going for simple relative to someone like Samsung. They now have FIVE current models, spanning what is effectively two screen sizes (but actually four, which is worse, because now you're spreading yourself across FOUR form factors minimum.)
So even Apple isn't playing by the "too many different things" rule. In reality they could accomplish all this with two models: a big one and a small one. Add in a "mini" size and now you have three models, plus much better variety.
I won't quibble about what is best for Apple's bottom line though; I assume they know better than me. But I will quibble about neglecting what people are asking for while giving them things they aren't asking for.
> Small phones are also difficult.
No, they aren't. It used to be that big phones were difficult. Then screens got cheaper, and now they choose BIG every. single. time. They don't choose big because it's easy, they choose it because it sells better.
How much of that was due to the SE 2 being available at a better price while meeting most prospective customers needs?
Personally I was looking forward to an upgrade... but not now.
[0] see: massive financial incentives, developer tooling to help maximize engagement, product design focused on extended use, notoriously useless screen time feature etc
[1] we don’t have exact mini sales, but estimates are they were around 6% of total iPhone sales (aka: low, but billions a year in revenue, enough to keep barring other incentives) - more revenue than many other Apple products or the SE, for example. Even if you’re Apple you don’t axe billions in revenue for nothing!
One problem I have with what I will term "Trust-the-Science-ism" is that it inherently assumes safety of anything novel; the burden of proof is on the individual to prove it's unsafe, because the corporations care about you, and you should trust the science. PFASs, plasticizers, modern flame retardants, child use of smartphones/social media, general use of screens, et cetera. In reality, who knows if a novel thing is safe? Why not test it out in a truly rigorous fashion? If the benefits from this new thing are so great, we as a society could pay for this thousands of times over. Sadly the incentives never align, these new inventions are rarely challenged, and their studies rarely approach rigor.
So, what does the research say on the subject? Nothing, as it turns out - there's nothing substantial published. Why? Well, we know where the influence and interests lie.
Your sarcastic tone reminds me of a Steve Jobs interview.
> In 2010, a New York Times reporter had a conversation that revealed a lot about the life of the founder of Apple. Nick Bilton commented, “Your kids must love the iPad, right?” After the launch of the device. Jobs replied, “They haven't used it. We limit the amount of technology our children use at home. "
Yeah, they know what it is that they are doing to the world. And they do not care, profits > humanity.
Part of the problem with Mini was its battery life. It seems 16e is improving on exactly that. Although I think it wont be 5.4" again since it was too small compared to the rest of the line up where it is usually 20% bigger screen to next size up.
May be 5.6" or even 5.8" as the original X.
That is literally what happened.
So many people are interested in which phone I have. It’s a 12mini. Won’t upgrade to 13mini bc that doesn’t make any sense.
I simply don’t want a bulky phone.
So keeping that in mind, regarding the modem, I remember prior comments about it being near-impossible or extremely difficult for Apple to cut out Qualcomm because of the decentralized network of mobile towers, operators, proprietary information, legacy cruft, edge cases, hardware and geographical testing, etc., which Qualcomm handles as part of its value-add. If Apple starts spearheading changes in how phone modems work, could we imagine mobile towers playing along and converging? Or is it more entrenched than that?
Prior discussion
Need to buy 3rd party silicone inserts.
Scanning through, it was pretty silly how much the iPhone X was about mocapped emojis.
it was extremely difficult, they have been working on this since at least ~6 years, maybe longer and involved buying intel 5G modem business
it also is lacking UWB which either Apple has given up on or is bringing back with future revisions of their modem
4G and above are open standards, and Samsung, Huawei and MediaTek have all previously created their own cellular modem implementations.
It's not easy, but if your market share is big enough, you come out ahead.
Do You mean Telco Equipment vendor converging? Well first thing is that 4g / 5G or 3GPP is an open standard so anyone could implement it. Second is that there are only a few Telco Equipment vendor left already. There will still be insane amount of testing required to be done even if everyone were to use the same equipment. The amount of variables such as spectrum, regulations requirements, physical space and density as well as weather difference.
Apple's own comparison tool is useful: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-16e,i...
But not for 600 USD, that's a bit too much.
These types of "budget" phones that Apple does are for people who can't/won't buy the flagship (because too expensive) but wouldn't buy something second-hand either.
There are a LOT of people like that. It is not rational at all; they would rather buy something shittier for their money than get more value. My grandparents are like that.
To buy in the second-hand market you need to have some knowledge about how phones compare in the first place, even if you use a platform that minimizes the risks.
So, it's not the same market at all, and Apple is pushing their luck even more with a pricing way too high for what is essentially a 3 years old phones at best (the chip makes little difference to the typical user of these phones).
They even tell you what the actual rate is in the fine print. It's just priced in: 17.49$ over 36 months comes out to 629$.
>Monthly payments shown are for customers who qualify to pay $0 Down, $17.49/mo. for36months; 0% APR. Retail Price: $629.99
It isn't just verizon either. Here is metropcs offering free iphone 13s for new customers:
It's entirely rational. I bought plenty of used phones, and even repaired them myself because I couldn't afford new ones. Would not do that again.
The risk of getting scammed, or getting a phone with issues is too high. Both have happened to me in the past. It can even be dangerous if someone swapped out the battery with a cheapo fire hazard. A lot of resale prices are also simply too high to be worth it.
Now imagine your grandparents. As you said, the exact model/chip doesn't matter, any phone is good enough. What they're buying is an appliance that will last at least the warranty period (2 years, EU), but likely much longer. Basically piece of mind at a fixed price. They won't get scammed (online) or ripped off (used in a physical store) if they buy directly from Apple.
They have a warranty up to one year, and any problem is resolved pretty quickly.
It’s not as cheap as trying your luck in the various 2nd hand sites but if you value safety and time it’s worth it. It still comes out much cheaper than anything brand new.
I bought quite a lot of phones on those platforms and the only time there was an issue (faulty touch layer on a display side) it was swapped within 3 days.
It’s irrational fear really. If anything those phones are rock solide because if they survived the first few years of their lives, unless there is an event they are very likely to have a long life (no faulty part, pre-tested); the only care is battery life if that wasn’t changed during refurbishing. But generally people who can benefit from those phone do just fine pushing the battery to the very end of its life so it doesn’t even matter that much. A non trivial amount of those phone end up there because they are fully financed after 2 years and the owner gets a new one. Sometimes you find one year old phone that were just swapped for the newest one because their owner is rich enough that he can’t be bothered to do a battery replacement and would rather have the newest model.
Some people are rich and many don’t have that much financial responsibility, people should take advantage of that, just saying…
This phone is at least modern, but it's not great value for money.
It's worth what people are willing to pay and plenty of people valued it enough to put their hand in their pocket.
When the time comes, I'll probably look for a used iPhone 14/15 instead of a new iPhone 16e. To much money for my purpose.
I've been sniping used Pixels off there for really good prices.
I dunno, the old SE wasn’t a mini by any means - this is .3 inches taller and .2 inches wider, so yes bigger but not like a different size class altogether
Too bad the management consultants killed such a technology.
I’m willing to bet it was some people in management that missed the small phones and fought to re-introduce a smaller form factor phone. They succeeded in making the best small phones ever made and rounding down approximately nobody bought them. Blame the general public for killing the form factor.
Traditionally, the amount of RAM in your device is the limiting factor that controls how many years of updates you get.
So far, 8 years for the OG iPhone SE is the standing record for years of updates.
Now with C1 that API is designed at apple and in a way that their soc team wants to get the best battery life along. So the modem can be turned off / on updated request data signals etc in a more efficient manner with the soc. On top of that apple probably cleaned up parts of the modem that they probably didn’t feel were needed for their iPhones that maybe QC were obligated to include because of the way their modems had to be designed and sold.
Now do this to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and put everything in the soc and you are going to be getting solid gains sooner than later.
This transition is very exciting cause I’m hoping this happens to MacBooks as well.
Would love a 5G MacBook with a data plan.
Massive chunks (millions of lines) of Qualcomm modem firmware (the part running on Hexagon DSP cores) are even leaked on github for anyone to see.
Apple is bound to have uptodate and probably even completely source available Qualcomm firmware at its engineers' fingertips. And they have more leverage than random Chinese IoT manufacturer, to request ability to modify it as they see fit. And they'll certainly have at least the parts that are relevant for the control you're talking about.
The decision most likely comes down to politics (any help optimizing qualcomm modems directly benefits everyone using them, and that's a lot of android phones out there), and not these kinds of technical issues.
I thoroughly enjoyed the ATP podcast discussion on this.
Sounds like the base assumption is Apple is incapable of having decent tethering even as they control the whole ecosystem, including special protocols in-between their product they design 100% from hardware to software.
But somehow pushing the modem in the MacBook solves this...because Apple is then good at managing transient network connections in macos, hooking to complex mesh networks on protocols they don't control ?
To my eyes Apple being unable to realize these dreamlike expectations is probably the very reason MacBooks don't have modems.
Are they, though? Tethering from my MacBook to my iPhone or iPad is a pretty seamless experience, to the point I don't even think about it. And sometimes I get home from a cafe and forget I'm even tethering until I notice my iPhone battery is lower than expected. And this isn't Apple, but I don't even notice I'm not on my home LAN because of tailscale.
It's definitely significantly easier than dealing with built in WWAN devices & ModemManager on my linux laptop. (Or Windows, when I used it on that same hardware.)
On my side it was 90% there, a bit lagging to connect and totally failing from time to time , once in a week perhaps, but workable otherwise. The argument on the podcast was for having a 100% great solution like it does on the iPad, assuming an internal modem on macos would rainbows and ponnies.
I must have been around the 1h20 time in the podcast
A cell modem is mostly just another uplink, with all the hard stuff being done in the modem. The user doesn't need to do anything to use it. Tethering requires extra stuff to happen: the user has to initiate the connection, the iPhone has to reconfigure its networking, and I imagine there's a bunch of security layers that must be passed through before tethering is allowed. It's 2 entirely different scenarios.
Why doesn't having another separate subsystem running it's own OS managing the cell connection also have network switching implications (something deciding the connection is now the primary one, just like it does for tethering), security issues (it's a know attack vector on phones as well), power management issues etc ?
The iPhone 3G for instance was a piece of crap network connection wise, it would drop calls, lose signal, memory leak at the border of the two systems etc. Networking with a cell subsystem isn't trivial.
Coming from a mature OS built from a completely different paradigm is going to require a lot more effort. In particular macos has a whole legacy of programs doing almost whatever they want.
Apple _can_ just slap a cell networking subsystem in it and let it crash and burn whenever something unexpected happens or the user gets out of the defined boundaries of when it should work (like depleting system memory), but that doesn't sound like a great brand strategy to me and is not what people seem to be expecting. Microsoft will be on board with it, but I don't see Apple.
Maybe UWB, NFC, GPS too, right?
Noob question: these things have software defined radio something DSP something angry pixies. And the just add Rx/Tx stuff as needed. Right?
AM, FM, CB, whatever support would be cool.
Low Data Mode would need to be better enforced at the OS level (maybe with even per-app prompts and data usage tracking - safari and music can use 5G but maybe Arq backups shouldn’t)
This has been a long time coming since Apple bought Intels modem division several years ago.
I’m also interested to see if it enables cellular in laptops. Afaik the limiting factor has been that Qualcomm charge a percentage of device rate , which would be exorbitant for a laptop. Having it be in house might allow for it now.
Why? It uses a linear zoom like a classic lens design inside and embeds an optical 2x zoom lens into a smaller area.
From the press release:
> With an integrated 2x Telephoto, users have the equivalent of two cameras in one, and can zoom in with optical quality to get closer to the subject and easily frame their shot.
Edit: reading below it's still unsure if they actually have a lens that moves back & forth to achieve the zoom.
> 12MP 5x Telephoto: 120 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture and 20° field of view, 100% Focus Pixels, seven-element lens, 3D sensor-shift optical image stabilization and autofocus, tetraprism design. 5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 10x optical zoom range
An image showing what they did earlier: https://i.4pda.ws/s/as6yz0d0FvbZniF2YYSyZ3z2HOWajz2.jpg
Same thing with the new modem.
I'm a bit suspicious about this, because if it was truly great, they would have waited longer to advertise it as a must have feature for their "pro" devices.
It's sort of beta testing the thing on the lower volume product with less tech literate people who won't complain too much because of some weird connectivity issues.
If it performs, Apple is going to make even more money on the next round of iPhone, not that Apple needs any more money but you know, if that could stop them from increasing the price, that could be nice.
Since Apple owns the whole stack, they can iterate faster too.
If you have an actual physical zoom lens, cropping a zoomed out photo produces a different result than zooming in with the lens in the first place. Even when your camera/sensor doesn't move. It's all physics yo
Are WWAN cards not a thing already? I've never looked much into them at all, but they do seem to exist, at least (and seem to be around $20-$50 and plug into M.2 slots)
However, part of the process of creating an open industry standard like 4G/5G is getting a legally binding commitment from the patent holders to license standards essential patents to all takers on "reasonable" terms.
> If the patent holder refuses upon request to license a patent that has become essential to a standard, then the standard-setting organization must exclude that technology.
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discrimina...
So Qualcomm is still entitled to some money, but not nearly as much as they made back when there was no legal restriction on what they could demand.
> It was first implemented in Finland in December 1991. By the mid-2010s, it became a global standard for mobile communications achieving over 90% market share, and operating in over 193 countries and territories.
https://www.apple.com/iphone-16e/specs/
5G NR (Bands n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n14, n20, n25, n26, n28, n29, n30, n38, n40, n41, n48, n53, n66, n70, n71, n75, n76, n77, n78, n79)
FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71)
TD‑LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 48, 53)
UMTS/HSPA+ (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
My current iPhone (and I had to check which one I have...) actually is much more sticky to satellite. It wont switch back to cellular immediately.
I am guessing that's the end of the small phone line at Apple.
That really ended with the 13 mini on which I'm typing this comment and that I'll hold onto till it's no longer supported.
"Is Uncle Dave coming this Thanksgiving?"
"No, he was adopted by a competing family. We're suing."
Can someone explain why they are pushing USB 2 speeds via USB-C connector in 2025? Can't believe it's cost... It's a shame.
It's quite bad, because it's a rug pull that Apple did. Before all the cloud/service nonsense, what differentiated Apple from the rest was your ability to fully own and manage their devices easily without having to rely on some "forever" subscription.
If people wanted some cloud crap, they could have gone with Google or even Microsoft. But current Apple doesn't care, it cares more about money than a fundamental philosophy that sets them apart.
I'm not sure that's ever been true of the iPhone. Apple's app store is the only way to install software, you're tied to their cloud from day 1. Its not a paid subscription that you're locked into, but they make sure everyone pays in some way.
It's maddening but it is a question of cost; it's just pennies, and Apple is for sure not passing on the savings to us.
why wouldn't it be cost? even if it's only a few cents per unit, they're still going to sell millions of these, it all adds up and the best place to cut costs is in the places where most people don't actually care.
I wish though they would ship some beefy apple tv/mac mini/router with 32GB RAM that can work not only as private llm but also private iCloud, vpn, router, pihole, etc
It probably makes sense for simpler tasks like summarizing text messages/email that you might not necessarily want to send off to a third party that has a "move fast and break things" approach to data privacy
I think being able to cram this amount of new tech (a new camera, a new modem) for a new device is good for apple. I believe this will play out well, and this tech will graduate the so-called flagships in a couple of years.
I don't think i'd give up the camera for it though.. but a boy can dream.
There's all sorts of limitations that seem less like thoughtful design and more like holding back the devices just that bit to make you want another device. You can't just want an iPad Pro, how will you run desktop apps? You can't just want an iPad Mini, how will you call people?
Well, at least the iPads can function as calculators now.
Pixel Tablet with GrapheneOS has less limitations and will soon have Linux VMs, but lacks a keyboard travel case, and has been discontinued.
But I'm not even talking about Linux stuff, just basic use cases. Like a website somehow doesn't work with the iPad/iPhone, even if you forcibly request the desktop version. (YouTube creator studio live streaming is one example, or random airliners' in-flight video sites.) You need to unzip, manipulate, re-zip, and email something. Putting stuff on a USB stick for a print shop. Doing taxes. Running some Mac/Windows-only software.
How I wish Apple would work to make this better than the current state. Currently it's very ugly (bad scaling, weird res, weird bars around screen), high latency, needs some configuration...
Just let me plug in a cable and it should immediately become a display. (with video over DP?)
Non-Pro iPads are limited to USB2 speeds. Capturing 4K content for display on iPad would need a Pro device with USB3/Thunderbolt USB-c input.
1080p on a small screen isn't bad, though.
I hope they never do that, it was a disaster on Windows 8.
The iPhone 4 had stainless steel frame, yet they made a big deal of it with the X and subsequent "Pro" generation when it was a standard "feature" that set them appart for success in the first place. It's crazy how much bullshit Apple have been selling since their financiarisation.
Have you seen what cars people buy?
Welcome to the modern world.
Some people may care a little extra for an ultrawide lens and spending more for the cheaper iPhone 16 with 2 lenses of regular + ultrawide is enough for that. Don't have to get the more expensive Pro model.
The Pro model adds a 3rd lens for optical "true" telephoto instead of digitized "fake" telephoto and increases the resolution on the ultrawide.
It's also not clear from from the Apple press release if the 16e has a macro mode. The regular iPhone 16 (not Pro) has macro.
But then why would you buy the pro?
16 Pro: 48MP macro photography
16: Macro photography
16e: —
I don't see much in favor of the vanilla iPhone 16. Is the extra camera lens useful for anything beyond portrait mode?
Regardless of the AVP's success, there will probably be some AR/VR device that becomes popular, and can read this format in the future.
The new modem is interesting. How much power around the world is being wasted because Qualcomm's code sucks? Apparently gigawatts per day.
That's enough power to drive a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus a distance of... 55 meters.
Even if Qualcomm's code was solely responsible for completely draining my phone's battery every single day, it would still not be very much power.
I'm guessing you might miss the cool animations but for charging and mounting it will work the same.
Which is also why we will probably see the discontinuation of the regular iPhone 16 this Fall when the iPhone 17 is introduced, with this 16e staying on at the same price for an extra year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-11/apple-aap...
Con(?): 60 Hz
And the price hike again shows that Apple is the master of the "for just a few hundred dollars more, you can get...“ upsell to bigger iPhones.
Among mainstream users, people just don't care and this isn't remotely the differentiator people seem to hold it as. Similar to the micro bezel fetish, these are spec-chaser points that certain manufacturers convince people are must haves. But they really aren't.
I agree that most users don't consciously care, but I think its definitely possible that it influences how fast the phone feels and could influence purchases if you are testing them side-by-side in a store. There is some anecdotal evidence to that in the fact that Google does the extremely scummy thing of locking their non-pro Pixels to 60Hz when in demo mode regardless of the refresh rate setting chosen in the OS.
In my point of view, the bummer is non LTPO display, preventing going down to 1hz which can save some battery if you use your phone for reading.
Anyone who disagrees should try teaching an older relative with less than youthful fine motor control how to use a FaceID equipped iPhone.
Meanwhile, the Settings app keeps begging me to "Finish Setting Up Your iPhone".
(I initially thought you might mean faceid doesn't work if you're a bit shaky, but I just tried that and it surprisingly doesn't care.)
Still more deterministic than Face ID.
There was also a rumor of in-display Touch ID.
It's the perfect way to accidentally all of the things.
Accidentally open an app. Now you have to wait for it to load, and waste your network data and battery, before you can do what you really wanted to do.
Accidentally read that message, and also accidentally swipe it away while you fumble with your phone. You didn't want to see that message anyway.
Accidentally add that person to your contact groups. Yup, you added your boss to the conversation with your wife. Nobody will mind!
Accidentally read an email, and clicked on that phishing link. Cool beans, security relies on 2FA anyway, right? It's not like it could open an app and automagically read the SMS code, right?
Accidentally start playing video. Yes that video. In the conference room. It's nice that everyone has a great sense of humor!
This is the biggest announcement IMHO, it's been a long time coming for them to ship something after buying the patents from Intel. It makes sense to ship the first new radio in "not your flagship" and a good way to test it out.
I wonder if the iPhone 17 will have it or if they will wait another year to see how it does. I would imagine the 17 is pretty much locked down as of now so it's not like this phone is meant to test in the wild then use the tech in 17 since there isn't enough turnaround time.
I used to think 4.7” was a bit too much. Holding onto SE 2016 till death do us part.
Wait a sec. 24 * 24.95 = $598.80
They'll pay you twenty cents to take the financing?
Unless interest rates drop to 0% they're obviously still losing money, but if you follow the logic of everywhere that allows BNPL[0] you make it up by having more purchases than you would otherwise.
[0]: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/buy-now-pay-later/
> The last month’s payment for each product will be the product’s purchase price, less all other payments at the monthly payment amount
Still interesting this is one of few products offering zero interest financing.
>Available space is less and varies due to many factors. A standard configuration uses approximately 12GB to 24GB of space, including iOS 18 with its latest features and Apple Intelligence on-device models can be deleted if Apple Intelligence is turned off and use approximately 7GB of space. Turning on Apple Intelligence will download the models again. Apple apps that can be deleted use about 4.5GB of space, and you can download them back from the App Store. Storage capacity subject to change based on software version, settings, and iPhone model.
I use chatGPT while driving in the car to get things done & as a knowledge base, but I have to open the app to use it (not safe when driving).
I have an iPhone 15 Pro and still with Siri's Apple Not-Intelligent I can only ask Siri one question at a time and I always have to say Hey Siri ask ChatGPT xyz and then to continue to learn more have to say that again with a follow-up question. It's such a terrible UX when compared to opening chatGPT and talking to it, yet again not safe to do so when driving!
Though H.E.R. without falling in love with it.
I'm curious what you think digital zoom is if not cropping.
While I don't think it's right to call these crops "optical zoom", the quality is typically pretty good.
Presumably the standard image on the 16e converts the 48 MP sensor into a 12 MP image with less noise because they bin 4 sensor pixels into 1 pixel in the image file. So a 12 MP crop on the 48 MP sensor would result in a zoomed image with the same 12 MP resolution as the standard image. A major drawback would be higher image noise, but nobody will see a reduction in image pixels. At the end of the day it's probably somewhere between true optical zoom and a 12 MP native sensor with a crop.
I think Apple's selling point is the app ecosystem, but I personally don't use apps all that much. Just a few big ones and they're all just for communication: FB Messenger, WhatsApp, SIM, SnapChat. And the web browser, maps. I'm 27.
Why can't someone just manufacture a screen, some buttons, little computer, then software for communication and make some good money?
Just seems Apple is a dinosaur nowadays Google too.
A few lower end black and white screen Android phones exist, and that seems closer to what you want.
I have some other obligations to handle, but the iPhone 16e looks perfect for me. You can replace so much music production gear with an IOS device. Can legit plug in a microphone and record a full album, which just isn't really their on Android.
It's beyond frustrating, but on IOS you have amazing music production, and Android is like 10 years behind. I wish Apple would offer a musicians edition with a headphone jack ( I'd literally pay an extra 150$) , but that's never going to happen...
It's not like the status quo phones are too expensive, too small or too slow compared to the average user's use case. There is a phone for every price point, and at worst you'll be stuck with a bad camera or a laggy chipset.
There are already phones running Linux and de-Googled OSes (Purism, Librem, LineageOS). They won't ever get big enough to challenge Apple/Samsung, but maybe be big enough to have a stable enough OS to not scare off people looking to switch.
Phones occupy the same space as nicotine in my head, so why not explore that comparison?
Not sure how you can have the software without the hardware.
Screens are addictive. Why they are addictive is an interesting question- but regardless of the software being used- video games, social media, browsing the web, the fact remains that these activities are all addictive. I suspect it's just because screens are shiny, colorful, interactive objects. It doesn't matter what app you give a baby or a chimp, they will stare at the screen for many hours. TV addiction illustrates my point further.
Anyways, this is all besides my original question. Apple/Google feel like the IBM/HP of old. What shape will the new Apple/Google take?
I made no such assumption.
This is far astray from the original thread
You can have good software. You can have bad software. The hardware does not make it good or bad. The software is whatever the devs made it to be utilizing whatever hardware on which it runs. The user is ultimately responsible for the software they use whether they installed it or it is preinstalled.
Again, blaming the horse because the rider is doing bad things is not the right approach
> In your example, I can just look thru your HN history and see you posted dozens of times yesterday.
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? I don't use a device to do this.
It's unfortunate jumbotrons sell so well to the mindless masses that live on a phone. Otherwise the two main sizes would be the 5.42 and 6.3. Both reasonable for daily carry in a pocket. The 6.7 and 6.9" sizes are what are silly.
I'm taking this as a sign from Apple that I use my phone too much and should probably stop.
Somehow I see using phone less as a benefit.
The idea of having a normal screen on the front but then a second foldable screen inside is a great tradeoff between form and function.
Unfortunately I can’t see Apple releasing this because it harms their tablet sales. Hopefully I’m proven wrong though.
Putting aside the biggest issue which is a creased and more fragile screen, I’m not really convinced it’s a better experience. Having more real estate for movies seems useful, but it’s otherwise difficult to type/hold/tap on such a large screen without a full commitment to tablet usage (which often includes a stand). I’m also not really sure how often I’d use the larger format.
But you can then fold the phone open to get access to that wider screen.
So you get the best of both worlds, a normal phone handset for one handed action. But a larger screen for when you want something that’s a little more “tablet” like.
I suspect the real reason they haven't released a foldable yet is that foldables still need to have a soft plastic screen and a crease/bump in the middle, and Apple's design neuroticism would never permit them to ship such a thing.
I really don’t want to leave Apples ecosystem but when my phone is due for renewal later this year, I’d seriously consider switching to Android if it meant getting a foldable screen.
Will it ever be?
Then I bought an iPhone 16 Pro and it was even worse than my iPhone 14 Pro... so I returned it even though I wanted a new phone.
It's gotta be affecting their bottom line.
Whoah! Maybe Apple can now figure out how to put a cellular modem in a MacBook Pro.
You can always easily tether to your iPhone. It’s hard to imagine people who own a Mac but don’t have a phone — I assume Android can also provide tethering? Aside from the BOM price increase and physical real estate, do want to pay $10/mo or whatever for an additional line?
The Qualcomm royalty agreement has been the problem, as they reportedly get a fraction of total device cost.
How my cellular provider bills me for it is irrelevant.
That the only reason Apple never included a cellular modem in MacBooks is because it would raise their prices because they'd have to pay Qualcomm.
Now that they won't, it seems inevitable.
The day this new one came out, I went and bought a brand new SE. I'll keep it in the box until my current SE dies and then I will swap it out for a (new) old SE.
1. Is there a terminal equivalent like termux?
2. Is there an open source wireguard client like the official wireguard client for Android?
3. Is it possible to upload mp4 videos to it to watch offline?
4. Is it possible to upload some of my mp3 collection to it to play offline?
5. I believe syncthing isn't officially supported. Are there any alternative syncthing implementations or workarounds?
2. There's the official wireguard client
3. iOS has native mp4 support. You can play mp4s from files stored on the phone, or from gdrive or dropbox, etc. or just import to your photos/videos library.
4. Yes.
5. yes, the Möbius Sync app
2. I use the official Wireguard client.
3. Yep.
4. Yep.
5. People grouse about it, but iCloud works brilliantly if you use it with other Apple gear. There are also the usual suspects like Box, Dropbox, GDrive, etc.
I plugged it into my MBP expecting to be able to copy media over, but you can only copy it into the sandboxed filesystem of one app. So choose wisely.
Downloading media using Plex etc sucks. As soon as the phone locks or you move to another app, it stops. On Pixel, I could queue up a load of downloads or SMB transfers, lock my phone on the side and expect them to be complete when I come back.
As for a terminal or using it like a computer, fuhgeddaboutit.
If anything I've said is wrong, please correct me. I want to like this phone, the camera is out of this world.
You’ll have to pry the 13 mini from my cold dead hands…or just stop supporting it
At this point one of these SE type devices is on my list for any future upgrades. I've gone to carrying a pocketable camera with me pretty much anywhere so having a good camera on my phone is no longer necessary, which means no more Pro model for me.
My iPhone 12 Mini has seen better days, and I will need a new phone soon. It is disappointing that there is no alternative to the iPhone 12/13 Mini in 2025.
The smaller form factor is more comfortable in my hand, and fits better in my pockets. With the slim bezels, I have never felt that the screen was too small.
It is funny to think that the screen size on the iPhone 12 Mini is very similar to the screen size on the older plus models.
sigh
If your concern is pocketability this new phone is only 0.25 inches larger in the diagonal.
The 16 at first felt freakishly huge after years of the 13 mini, but I’ve gotten used to it.
[1] "Your product is eligible for a battery replacement at no additional cost if you have AppleCare+ and your product's battery holds less than 80% of its original capacity." https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement
For them: more control, lower marginal costs.
The segmentation is very visible.
It's a bummer, because it means that in case of need (broken phone) i cannot buy any new phone, drop my sim in and go.
It's a HUGE step back.
Xiaomi Poco X7 & X7 pro were released in Janunary, for example. Don't see a post about that.
A Mini would not have been a diminished experience/purchase even with lesser features. This is a diminished experience even for what it would cost.
This is a sad day and not progress in any meaningful way (social engineering away physical SIM, causing loss of flexibility when traveling).
Apple made the best small phones anyone had ever made and people didn’t like them. Bigger phones allow for a lot more than just bigger screens. People seem to take all the non screen stuff for granted.
With medical conditions affecting my muscle strength, I wish phones would get a bit lighter. Glass sandwich form factor is unnecessarily heavy and fatigues my arms.
Not sure if I want to upgrade.
All of my friends that have minis are also people that don't upgrade frequently.
Also, companies need to plan for the long term instead of throwing up their hands at the first failure...
(Grammatically, I mean. I'm not asking for legal advice.)
Edit: Nope. What's different from the 16? Action button? 1 less GPU core? Same camera but no ultra wide? Ahhh, it's just a cheapened 16.
Welp rip any interest a bunch of us had in an iphoneSE4.
What a fucking waste of time. The sad thing is I can accept that apple continually wants miserable storage base tiers, that ship has sailed and they will never see 256gb as logical starting points on a phone so damn expensive when their computers start at that horrid storage point.
If it was $499 I would have contemplated finally upgrading. At $599 I'll let everyone else beta test apples new modem in case its another 'you're holding it wrong' type of response if it underperforms in speed, connection quality, etc.
The average normal person I help with phones all seem to be running out of space but its usually done to junk apps they forgot they had, 60gb of grandkid videos, and 10 years of texts they keep dragging along.
iPhone 16e: $599, 6.1-inch display, 5.78 x 2.82 x 0.31, 5.88 ounces
This is a major downgrade in every way for people who want the smallest possible iPhone.
But I have to say, I was more annoyed by the loss of touch ID than by the increase in screen size. While I like the smallest possible iPhone, my SE has not been very nice to use lately. Developers aren't testing their sites/apps on that screen size, and many sites/apps are getting really janky when run on a screen that small.
There was a big gap (5+ years?) between the small iPhone SE and the 12 mini, so a lot of people jumping on 12 mini and being disappointed by the small phone may have resulted in disappointing sales of 13 mini.
But I’m sure the phone sellers know what they are doing, it just would have been nice to even be able to still buy a 13 mini. None of the new phones have any capabilities I care about.
Edit to respond to below:
I am not assuming that, I am actually assuming the opposite. There may have been pent up demand due to the long gap between the small iPhone SE and 12 mini, so when the 12 mini came out and disappointed, people who had been waiting to upgrade chose a non mini reducing the total number of minis sold. And then the 13 mini was discontinued by the time those people needed a new phone.
But again, probably wishful thinking on my part.
If you start serving every 4% of needs in each product category, watch the portfolio balloon to catastrophic proportions. The very principle of the thing is anti-Apple; they would quickly become Samsung, complete with Samsung level naming schemes and weird decision making. Next thing you know, we'll have the Apple Vacuum Cleaner, the Apple Door Lock, the Apple Ice Cream Scoop, the Apple Exterior Camera, and so on.
iPhone as a category is so massive now that small percentages are still millions of people.
It's kind of sad that Apple itself has become so huge, because now the company ignores people it used to care about.
For the kinds of people who frequent HN, I'd wager we all do have a computer, heck there's probably a laptop in your backpack right now, so it makes sense to have a smaller phone for 'phone stuff' and whip out your laptop to do anything more involved.
Still though, surely Apple made money from the mini, even 3% of iPhone sales is a lot of phone sales! I wish they would keep it around.
I like small phones. 6% doesn't seem all that different from the current SE.
The fact that all that space seems to be going to battery life does seem nice...
I mean, isn't everyone here on HN always making fun of Apple's supposedly unnecessary obsession with thinness? Now it's a teensy bit thicker.
You don't make a phone half as tall and twice as thick and claim it's the same size...
Weight also matters.
I honestly still prefer the form factor of the iPhone 3GS. (I have an old one in a drawer for comparison.) 4.8 ounces, 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 with a rounded back. The thickness wasn't a problem.
The smallest possible iPhone ever was possibly the original iPhone.
They have the exact same A15 Bionic, with the same 4GB of memory. The 13 mini has an extra 400maH of battery.
I've had both and the iPhone SE (2022) lasted longer in my personal use. (sold the 13 in an antiapple mood only to come back and get an SE later)
It's a matter of choice, and I'm not judging people who like it by any means, but I'm a bit boneheaded on these things and don't change my choices that fast. For example, I still don't think OLED is suitable for TV sized screens and laptops. I know how the color and contrast is better, but I don't want to replace my TV or laptop every three years because it develops subtle burn-ins for example. I come from CRTs, and can endure a good backlit LCD a couple of more years, esp if it has color temperature adaptive backlight.
Hoping against hope that Apple brings back that size/form factor someday so clinging on to my 13 mini until that day comes...
(Or do what I always thought they should do and have a small iPhone and a normal sized one with identical internals, only the case, battery, and screen would be different.)
Size matters for me : I'm looking for a compact Android phone, there is none now. Something close to the iPhone 12 mini.
Both SE 2020 and 2022 had a body size of 138.4mm x 67.3mm, which gives a diagonal of 153.9mm or 6.1 inches.
The new iPhone 16e has a body of 146.7mm x 71.5mm, with a diagonal of 163.2mm, or 6.4 inches. So only 5% bigger.
How about accepting that we know what we want and that we don't need you you to lecture us on our preferences? Seriously, what's wrong with you? "Oh you complained about your preference on X, but let me educate you about your preferences are wrong?"
Mostly I just want a phone that is comfortable in my hands.
Apple tried with the iPhone 12 mini, and the iPhone 13 mini. They were only 5% of phones sold globally, and only 3% of phones sold in the US.
The desire for small phones is an internet thing, but not backed by the market. Take it as a reality check for how internet opinions can be mostly irrelevant.
It's a huge cost for something that sold (relatively) poorly.
Apple is making way too much money for the good of their customers. If only people would stop mindlessly buying, they would eventually listen but their userbase has become so huge that they are not going to change anytime soon.
What if, and I know this is a crazy thought but what if people aren’t buying Apple products mindlessly? What if they buy them because they like them? Maybe they’d didn’t buy the mini phones because they didn’t like them.
Then again, you are confused, I never said they were buying mindlessly. They buy it because they are popular and confer status. This is why the vast majority of people buy them, not a well-reasoned and careful choice attained by proper comparison and knowledge after reviewing options.
It's not good for people who view those things as tools, because price increase and focus on the historical target group diminish tremendously.
It's not something that is exclusive to Apple but it's particularly painful because of the quirks of computing (having software linked to a particular hardware platform).
And yes, they didn't buy the Mini phone because they didn't like them. It confers less status and is not as good as a social media machine, so of course.
But by this logic McDonalds must be good because of how many people like them and somehow that's a desirable and valuable outcome.
Apple knows its sales and profits much better than anyone else.
Apple owes small phone enjoyers nothing and they will drag you into paying more for a phone you don't want because you are helpless.
Figure most of those 3% would buy a different iPhone model if their preference was not available (not Android, because even if brand loyalty / ecosystem lock-in wasn't so powerful, the Android small-phone options are not competitive).
Then figure that 0.5% (generously!) of lost revenue has to pay for all the custom tooling, parts, manufacturing lines, etc.
... and it all makes an infernal kind of sense.
I'm still anachronistically appreciating my iPhone SE (Gen 1) with a 4" IPS display, Touch ID, Lightning connector, and a 3.5mm audio jack. It's great!
Except that I'll need to upgrade from iOS 15 at some point. :)
People have said this for years, but the mini phones were never going to be instant day-one hits. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to launch them during Covid, offer them 2 years, and say no one wants them.
Give them a permanent place in the lineup, treating phones like every other very personal device meant for humans. Small, medium, and large.
If you do that, and give people time to see exactly why 5.42 screens are superior to 6.1"+ sizes, then I think the numbers will start to change from what we saw with the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini that were launched when people were less on the go than in 100 years.
And no, I don't think a mini SKU can ever beat out the "cheap and big" midrange device that the average person is going to go for. Those will never be beat because they have perceived value. But I would bet in time it comes close or beats the "big and expensive" iPhone Pro Max option.
Is there a significantly reduced bill of materials? At best, the correlation between size and cost is very small. Most of the costs are in software, manufacturing, etc, not in materials.
Also, would there be a better profit margin? I bet customers won’t want to pay the same for a smaller phone, certainly not give that it will have lower battery life (power usage will, at best, go up with screen area, and battery volume will go up faster than phone volume because parts such as CPUs will not be smaller in smaller phones)
That said, if this is their "first gen" then there could be teething issues.
It would be nice to put the last few years of developments since his death into a silicon brain and ask the digital Steve Jobs his thoughts on the current state of affairs.
Will be interesting to see how Apple and Nvidia's approaches to AI compare and contrast over the coming months/years.
But I really did think that about the Mac Mini power button!
Where do you get that macOS is running code like this? I've never heard of shared compute on my computer for anything other than software I deliberately installed. I haven't paid that close attention to the past couple of OS propaganda films at the start of WWDC. Did I miss something?
...and then NPUs sorta did nothing. They run a few tiny models, maybe, but for any "serious" inference tasks Apple will automatically prioritize your 10x more powerful GPU hardware. Oftentimes the GPU is more efficient too, depending on the task.
So now Apple has a choice to make. They can either attempt to scale-up the NPU hardware and leave it on-device as dark silicon 99% of the time, or they can renovate their GPU hardware to support complex GPGPU operations and axe the NPU altogether. Right now it seems like Nvidia has the right idea, Apple just needs to find out how to scale it down as well as they can.
Again, I'm not saying the are. They're the only ones that could, though.
Networking compute isn't an issue. Compute architecture is.
There's absolutely zero evidence of that, and it would be easy to observe it happening. So why are you pushing some kind of totally false narrative?
None? I don't know what you're referring to. Apple's not running any kind of cloud on my private device. Their Private Cloud Compute is about running inference on Apple's cloud but with privacy guarantees -- not on consumer devices.
> It's one thing for them to offer that as a do-gooder service to their customers, which it certainly is.
Again, no idea what you're talking about. Who's doing good to who? Apple's providing a service to get you to buy their hardware. Consumers aren't doing good for other consumers.
> why wouldn't they use spare compute at the edge for inference? It's smart.
You're talking about on people's devices? Because it would use up their battery and heat up their devices and connectivity can be spotty which leads to terrible latency. I mean, that would be as bad as secretly mining Bitcoin on people's devices. How would that ever be smart?
And Apple's in the business of selling hardware. Not helping people save money by sharing hardware. You can't even share an iPad with different logins for family members.