Tim Cook Teases New iPhone SE Reveal on February 19

Tim Cook iPhone SE

Apple CEO Tim Cook has just teased the launch of a new product on Wednesday, February 19. Unless there’s a last-minute surprise, this should be the company’s new iPhone SE. In his message on X, Cook said to “get ready to meet the newest member of the family.”

Yesterday, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman also wrote that the new iPhone SE “should be announced by next week, when the company is holding product briefings.” The reporter also previously said that shipments for this new iPhone should start later this month.

It’s quite unusual for Apple to tease the launch of new products that way. If the 3rd gen iPhone SE was announced during a Spring event alongside updated iPad Airs and the new Mac Studio, the new entry-level iPhone will likely be announced via a press release, as Apple did for its first M4-based Macs in October.

This doesn’t mean that this new iPhone SE isn’t going to be a big deal, however: According to previous reports, the new model will be as powerful as the brand new iPhone 16 and 16 Plus with the same A18 chip and 8GB of memory to run Apple Intelligence features. The new entry-level iPhone is also expected to adopt the more modern iPhone 14 design with thinner bezels and a notch hiding the new Face ID sensor.

Apple’s new low-cost iPhone should also be the first model to use a new in-house modem from Apple, marking a tipping point in the company’s multi-year effort to replace Qualcomm modems in its smartphones. It will be interesting to see if Apple communicates about this important under-the-hood change that may help to improve battery life.

For EU users, the launch of this new iPhone SE is also going to be important as the company stopped selling the 3rd gen model in the region at the end of December. This was done to comply with the EU’s new common charger law that requires all smartphones sold in the region to use a USB-C port for charging.

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Thurrott