The 5G iPhone SE are for carriers, not customers

Apple is wide expected to unharness a replacement iPhone SE model on, the company’s third — and its fastest update nevertheless for its most cost-effective line of smartphones.

Apple’s unharness cycle for the SE line is accelerating: the initial iPhone SE was discharged in 2016 as an entry-level choice for the iPhone lineup, priced at simply $399 — compared to the $649 iPhone 6s model that preceded it some months before. The second-generation model followed four years later, in 2020.

Now, simply 2 years later, Apple is getting ready to unharness its third-generation iPhone SE, one that’s reported to supply generally identical style because the 2020 SE, however with associate degree upgraded processor and camera from the 2020 model, in conjunction with 5G.

And it’s that final detail — the addition of 5G — that appears to reveal why Apple is upgrading the iPhone SE this early: it’s an upgrade for the carriers, not the purchasers.

While 5G isn’t sorry, in 2022, it’s not the revolutionary, must-have technology that cell carriers area unit pitching it as. Speeds area unit still lackluster in most cases, requiring terribly specific conditions with mmWave networks or the still-nascent mid-band networks that the majority of the US’s main carriers area unit still troubled to roll out. many years in, and 5G continues to be a lot of a promoting note than a revolutionary modification to however the majority use the net on the go.