“Apple is rumored to be readying an iPhone 5se which would take the iPhone 5s, update its internals to be similar to the iPhone 6 and somewhat update its design language to be more family-like with the iPhone 6 and 6s,” Paulo Santos writes for Seeking Alpha. “This is a desperate move, with Apple knowing Q3 FY2016 is going to look even worse than Q2 FY2016.”
“It being a desperate move is evident from the re-purposing of a previous design through a facelift. Apple simply does not do this. Each Apple design is supposed to be unique (or the same, in ‘s cycles’) – to be the best it can be,” Santos writes. “Taking an iPhone 5s body and changing some stuff around plus plugging in a 2.5D glass is simply not Apple-like. This means the product went through a very short design stage to get to the market as soon as possible.”
“It’s rumored that the phone will not include 3D Touch (expected, to reduce costs), yet will have access to Live Photos. Again, this like many other instances I’ve chronicled in the past exposes Apple to an image risk,” Santos writes. “It shows the company is purposely keeping some features off previous models even though they’re fully capable of handling them (the iPhone 6 did not receive Live Photos, for instance). Moreover, it also expands on the 3D Touch inconsistency, with the iPad Pro and now the iPhone 5se not having it in spite of it supposedly being some kind of great selling point.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There’s a lot of bunk in Santos’ full article, but this portion holds some truth.
Since the rumors began regarding this outlier 4-inch iPhone, we’ve wondered how can Apple introduce this “iPhone 5se” (awful name) without 3D Touch, but with Live Photos? Imagine the uproar from millions of iPhone 6/Plus owners over that! If this “iPhone 5se” and its 3D Touchless Live Photos feature is true, we’d expect Apple to enable it on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus with a software update unless they’ve totally lost the plot. Still, that leaves them open to the obvious claim that they withheld Live Photos until after Christmas in order to move as many 6s/Plus units as possible. Customers in general do not like to be toyed with, especially so obviously.
All that said, this is all conjecture based on rumors, so we’ll withhold judgement regarding any new 4-inch iPhone until it actually arrives and its specs/features are known.
SEE ALSO:
Apple likely to debut iPad Air 3, iPhone 5se, iOS 9.3, watchOS 2.2 with new Maps app, new Apple Watch bands at March event – January 27, 2016
Why Apple’s rumored 4-inch iPhone 5se may well be worth seriously considering – January 25, 2016
‘iPhone 5se’ likely to have faster A9/M9 chips and always-on Siri – January 25, 2016
Apple ‘iPhone 5se’ compared to an iPhone 5 in leaked image – January 25, 2016
