The Original iPhone SE — A 6s Heart in a Four-Inch Body

The original iPhone SE was announced on 21 March 2016 at an event at Apple's Cupertino headquarters, opened for orders on Thursday 24 March, and was released on Thursday 31 March 2016. Apple's first-day list was the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UK and the US Virgin Islands, so Japan was in the first wave. In early April more than 40 further countries and territories followed, including India and much of Europe.

In the US it cost $399 for 16GB and $499 for 64GB, without a contract. In Japan, SIM-free models from the Apple Store were ¥52,800 for 16GB and ¥64,800 for 64GB, excluding tax, and Docomo, au and SoftBank all took pre-orders from 16:01 on 24 March and released it on the 31st. Apple's own Japanese press release gave only the US dollar price; the yen figures come from the Apple Store listings as reported by the Japanese press.

What made it an "SE"

On the outside it was nearly the iPhone 5s of 2013: a four-inch, 1136 × 640 Retina display in a flat-edged aluminium body. Inside, the main parts came from the iPhone 6s of six months earlier.

So calling it a 6s inside a 5s is not quite right. The chip, rear camera and Live Photos matched the 6s, but the front camera was the 5s's 1.2 megapixels and there was no 3D Touch. Apple's technical specifications list a 1.2MP front camera with Retina Flash and say nothing about 3D Touch. It weighed 113 grams.

It came in four colours: space gray, silver, gold and rose gold.

Why build a four-inch phone again

With the iPhone 6 in 2014, Apple's main line had moved to 4.7 and 5.5 inches. Greg Joswiak, the Apple vice president who presented the SE, gave a number to explain why it went back. According to NBC News, he said Apple sold 30 million four-inch iPhones in 2015, and that for many of those buyers it was their first iPhone.

Existing users who did not want a bigger screen, and people buying their first iPhone: the $399 price was aimed at both. NBC News also described the phone as designed to draw developing markets such as China, but that was the reporter's assessment, not something Joswiak said.

No in-store Apple Pay in Japan

The SE had NFC, and in the US it could pay in shops with Apple Pay. Japan was different. Apple Pay arrived there in October 2016, and according to Apple's announcement that September, in-store payments with Suica and other services were limited to the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch Series 2 sold in Japan, which carried FeliCa. The SE, released six months earlier, could use Apple Pay in Japan only inside apps and in Safari. For Japanese buyers this was one more gap between the SE and the iPhone 7 that followed it that autumn.

Prices and storage over its life

For two and a half years the price barely moved. TechCrunch reported the 2017 storage change as Apple finally retiring the 16GB SE.

The SE after the SE

The name stuck. The second-generation iPhone SE, announced on 15 April 2020, took the 4.7-inch shape of the iPhone 8 and again started at $399. Putting a current chip in an older body and selling it for less — the idea of the original carried over. Only the four-inch screen ended with the first one.

For the flagship of the same year, see the iPhone 6s; for the model six months later, the iPhone 7. The whole line is on the iPhone timeline, and the company on Apple.