Apple has reportedly restarted development of the iPhone SE 4 smartphone, which will feature a 6.1-inch OLED display and an in-house 5G baseband chip.
On Monday, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, tweeted: "My latest survey indicates that Apple has recently restarted the iPhone SE 4, which will feature an OLED display instead of an LCD, as the biggest change. Overall, the SE 4 is a minor modification of the 6.1-inch iPhone 14."
Kuo also said that the new iPhone SE 4 will be equipped with "Apple's 5G baseband chip produced by a 4nm process (similar to 5nm) and will only support Sub-6GHz as the current plan".
He said that the mass production of the iPhone SE 4 will go "smoothly" in the first half of next year, and the iPad and Apple Watch will also soon "abandon" Qualcomm's baseband chips.
"This move will benefit Apple's hardware gross margin, while Qualcomm's Apple business will decline significantly in the next two to three years," he added.
Last month, Kuo claimed that Apple was debating whether to postpone the debut of the iPhone SE 4 or cancel it entirely. The analyst cites supply chain sources who claim to have information from Apple indicating that no such phone will be released. Apple and Qualcomm engaged in a legal spat over cellular modem technology used in iPhones. In the end, Apple bought Intel's modem division and paid Qualcomm to use its broadband chips. In the meantime, Apple has kept working on its own internal cellular modems, but according to Kuo's timeline, no iPhone would use these until at least 2025.
The new iPhone SE would not be the only one receiving a major upgrade. Rumours suggest that the iPhone 15 Pro lineup, expected to launch later this year, would also see a significant design change, including a USB Type-C charging port instead of the lightning port, in order to comply with the European Union’s guidelines for a standard port across smartphones from all companies.
The devices could also see thinner bezels and capacitive touch buttons for volume control instead of physical ones.
However, only time (and Apple, of course) will tell if any of the chatter about their devices will come true.
(With IANS Inputs)
