“Today we introduced iPhone SE, our most affordable iPhone. Its compact design and powerful performance feature the best single-camera system ever in an iPhone. Another fantastic option in our lineup to help you stay connected, informed and entertained,” said Tim Cook
With the above words, Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the new iPhone SE, a powerful new iPhone featuring a 4.7-inch Retina HD display, paired with Touch ID for industry-leading security. iPhone SE comes in a compact design, reinvented from the inside out, and is the most affordable iPhone.
According to Apple News Room, the new iPhone SE is powered by the Apple-designed A13 Bionic, the fastest chip in a smartphone, to handle the most demanding tasks. iPhone SE also features the best single-camera system ever in an iPhone, which unlocks the benefits of computational photography including Portrait mode, and is designed to withstand the elements with dust and water resistance.
iPhone SE comes in three beautiful colors — black, white and (PRODUCT)RED — and will be available for pre-order beginning Friday, April 17, starting at just $399 (US).
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“The first iPhone SE was a hit with many customers who loved its unique combination of small size, high-end performance and affordable price; the new second-generation iPhone SE builds on that great idea and improves on it in every way — including our best-ever single-camera system for great photos and videos — while still being very affordable.
“iPhone SE features the industry-leading performance of A13 Bionic that enables great battery life, takes stunning Portrait mode and Smart HDR photos, shoots amazing videos with stereo audio, is great for games and super-fast web surfing, and is built with the same industry-leading security features our customers expect. We can’t wait to get iPhone SE into customers’ hands,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing
The 4.7-inch Display
iPhone SE features an aerospace-grade aluminum and durable glass design with an all-black front, and is available in black, white and (PRODUCT)RED. The rear glass finish includes a centered Apple logo and is made using a seven-layer color process for precise hue and opacity, delivering rich depth of color with a color-matched aluminum band. It is water- and dust-resistant with an IP67 rating for water resistance up to 1 meter for 30 minutes.
The 4.7-inch Retina HD display with True Tone adjusts the white balance to match the ambient light for a more natural, paper-like viewing experience. The vibrant wide color gamut Retina HD display offers incredible color accuracy, and supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 playback. iPhone SE uses Haptic Touch for Quick Actions — such as animating Live Photos, previewing messages, rearranging apps and more — as well as contextual menus.
iPhone SE also features the familiar Home button designed with sapphire crystal to be durable and to protect the sensor, and a steel ring to detect a user’s fingerprint for Touch ID. Using Touch ID is an easy, private and secure alternative to entering a passcode to unlock iPhone, fill in passwords using iCloud Keychain, log in to apps, authorize App Store purchases, and make Apple Pay transactions.
Built with A13 Bionic — The Fastest Chip in a Smartphone
Introduced with iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, A13 Bionic is the fastest chip ever in a smartphone and provides unparalleled performance for every task iPhone SE handles. Perfect for photography, gaming and augmented reality experiences, A13 Bionic makes every action feel fluid.
A13 Bionic was built with a focus on machine learning, with a dedicated 8-core Neural Engine capable of 5 trillion operations per second, two Machine Learning Accelerators on the CPU and a new Machine Learning Controller to balance performance and efficiency. Together, A13 Bionic and iOS 13 enable new intelligent apps that make use of machine learning and Core ML.
Built for efficiency, the A13 Bionic also enables great battery life for iPhone SE. iPhone SE is wireless-charging capable with Qi-certified chargers and also supports fast-charging, giving customers up to 50 percent charge in just 30 minutes.2 Lightning-fast download speeds are available with Wi-Fi 6 and Gigabit-class LTE.3 Dual SIM with eSIM provides the flexibility for users to have two separate phone numbers on a single device while traveling abroad or for use as a business line.
New Camera Experience Powered by A13 Bionic
iPhone SE features the best single-camera system ever in an iPhone with a 12-megapixel f/1.8 aperture Wide camera, and uses the image signal processor and Neural Engine of A13 Bionic to unlock even more benefits of computational photography, including Portrait mode, all six Portrait Lighting effects and Depth Control.5 Using machine learning and monocular depth estimation, iPhone SE also takes stunning Portraits with the front camera.
Next-generation Smart HDR comes to iPhone SE, intelligently re-lighting recognized subjects in a frame for more natural-looking images with stunning highlights and shadow details.
Videos are even more immersive with stereo audio recording and cinematic video stabilization on the front and rear cameras. The rear camera supports high-quality video capture at 4K up to 60fps, and extended dynamic range comes to iPhone SE for more highlight details up to 30fps. Customers can also take advantage of QuickTake video on the front and rear cameras, allowing video recording without switching out of Photo mode.
With advanced Camera and Photo features in iOS 13, native editing is even more comprehensive and intuitive through powerful tools that were once available only for photo editing.
What comes to my mind after reading this article are:
Innovation and marketing makes money by Peter Drucker. Apple has exemplified what it means to constantly innovate.
Launching a product in time of crisis by Apple shows that the management are seeing trends beyond what ordinary people can see in business.
Human survival instincts make it impossible for people to just lie down in the face of adversity, then patiently waiting for death to come. It doesn’t happen that way, those in jail still have dreams, same goes for slaves; people won’t stop spending money, just because a pandemic ravaged economies.
Some will lie flat indoors, waiting for everything to settle down, but our world isn’t configured to function like that, irrespective of whatever that is happening, you can still plan and launch products; just figure out what people might need.
I must give credit to Team Apple, for their super storytelling skills. The same low cost phone market forces couldn’t bend Apple to consider, Covid-19 somewhat gave Apple an opportunity to change the narrative, at the end it will add more fans, while maintaining its elite aura. Give it to Apple, they have great psychologists in the building!
Businesspeople are already positioning for next quarter earnings, economies may shutdown, but people aren’t shutting down, we will be launching a couple soon…