Following weeks of speculation, Apple on Thursday sent out invites for a media event later this month that should serve as a launchpad for new iPhone and iPad models, Apple Watch bands and possibly more.
The press event will be held at Apple's Cupertino campus on Monday, March 21, 2016, at 10:00am PT, and will be live-streamed using HTTP Live Streaming.
As you may have guessed, iDownloadBlog will continue covering everything there's to know about about Apple's product refreshes.
Accessory vendor Spigen has created renderings of a work-in-progress case that it designed for Apple's upcoming 'iPhone SE'. Spigen often has some of the first cases available for new iOS devices so assuming they know what they're doing here, it could be concluded that the upcoming iPhone SE might be virtually indistinguishable from the iPhone 5s.
The rumor-mill is in disagreement over the design of the iPhone SE, with one camp claiming the handset is basically a four-inch iPhone with an iPhone 6/6s-like case and the other insisting the device will feature an iPhone 5s-like look and feel.
Kara Swisher of Re/code shot down the March 18 date for an Apple media event which was originally reported by Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac. According to Swisher, Apple's next product event is going to be held during the week of March 21, not on March 15.
Gurman originally claimed the event would be held on March 15, a Tuesday, ahead of the iPhone SE and iPad Air 3 launch on Friday, March 18.
“Or to put it another way, it’s not going to be on March 15, the time frame that other outlets previously reported,” she wrote, citing several sources familiar with the plans.
Just as so-called 'iPhone SE' is about to enter mass production, we have become exposed to its very first claimed component leak. Saturday, the reliable French blog NowhereElse.fr posted a purported image of the iPhone SE's screen assembly which supports the thesis that 3D Touch will remain exclusive to the iPhone 6s as a differentiating feature.
3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus uses an additional layer with 96 pressure-sensing sensors and is found between the display itself and the backlight module. No such layer could be identified in the leaked image.
Apple's upcoming four-inch 'iPhone SE' will cost between $300 and $400 in the United States, it will have a twelve-megapixel camera on the back rather than an eight-megapixel shooter, as previously rumored, and is entering mass production soon. Moreover, the existing iPhone 5s is slated to be discounted by fifty percent.
That's the gist of a note KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo sent to clients, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider.
Forget about the rumored 'iPhone 5SE' name that has been floating around for weeks now, it seems that Apple will call its upcoming four-inch iPhone refresh an 'iPhone SE,' according to 9to5Mac's reliable Mark Gurman (we called it, actually). If true, the planned name change will mark the first iPhone upgrade without a number in its name.
The iPhone SE is expected to replace the existing iPhone 5s and will take its price points, claim Gurman's unnamed sources. These sources also say that “the dropping of the '5' from the name simplifies the iPhone lineup as bringing back an iPhone '5' variant amid the iPhone '6' lifecycle could potentially confuse customers,” reads the report.