14 DAY TRIAL // Apple unveiled today the red iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, and as part of the announcement, the company also revealed changes concerning the smaller iPhone SE.
Starting Friday, March 24, the iPhone SE will be available online and in Apple stores with more storage space, as Apple is doubling the current capacity on both models. Specifically, the entry-level iPhone SE that previously shipped with 16GB storage will come with 32GB, while the 64GB version will be replaced with 128GB storage.
This doesn’t mean that prices will be increased as well, as Apple says the exact same price will be maintained, so the iPhone SE will continue to be priced from $399.
iOS and pre-installed apps eating up too much space
Having more storage on the base iPhone SE simply makes sense, mostly because iOS itself and the pre-installed apps already eat up a substantial amount of space on a device. This means that even though you buy an iPhone with 16GB storage, the available space is significantly smaller due to the operating system and the apps that iOS comes with. A 16GB iPhone comes with approximately 11GB available storage.
Apple made a similar change on the iPhone 7, as the new-generation model gives up on the 16GB version as well, offering by default 32GB on the entry-level configuration.
It goes without saying that this is an important change for buyers of the iPhone SE, especially because future versions of iOS could eat more space on the device, despite the file system changes that Apple is currently working on with beta versions of iOS.
The iPhone SE continues to be a compelling product for buyers interested in 4-inch devices, though the trend seems to change these days, with Apple seeing increased demand for the Plus version of the iPhone given the exclusive features it has, such as the dual-camera system.
Except for the storage increase, there is no other hardware upgrade on the iPhone SE. If you want to learn more about this small smartphone, you can read our iPhone SE review here.