They're two different things.

The SE is the previous iPhone design. Before that happened to be the iPhone 5/S, now it's the iPhone 6/7/8 design. There are likely a lot of people with iPhone 6, 6S, and 7 that might upgrade but don't want to spend $700+ and lose the home button.

I don't think the SE was targeted at small phone lovers, it just happened to be that since that's the manufacturing and design they had already created for the 5 and 5S.

Rumor is that the iPhone 12 this fall will include a smaller 5.4" model. This would actually be smaller than the 4.7" SE given that the screen goes to the edges. That's likely the "premium small phone" replacement, not this new 4.7" SE.

https://imgix.bustle.com/inverse/17/df/7b/88/27fe/4afe/aff4/...

Thanks. That is really helpful. I've been seeing the rumors of the 5.4" iPhone 12, but I had trouble understanding how the overall size would compare with the two SEs. I'll be really curious to see the price point of the 5.4". ~$1,000, or somewhere in between the 2020 SE and that?

The rumor is that there will be four phones:

5.4" iPhone 12

6.1" iPhone 12

6.1" iPhone 12 Pro

6.7" iPhone 12 Pro

Given that the 5.4" phone will probably be in the $600-700 range like the current iPhone 11.

https://twitter.com/jon_prosser/status/1247161866603958273/p...

I have a conspiracy theory that Apple redesigns the form factor every few years so that the "gotta have it" people are forced to upgrade to the latest and greatest device, and those with last gen's model feel that they need to keep up with the Joneses.

edit: I think this is a very real, but subconscious aspect of Apple culture and it exists across all of the product lines. Phones just happen to be one of their biggest products.

I don't think it's subconscious. It shows up obviously in bezel thickness and radius of corners. When they release a new product the bezel is thick and the corners are very round. As they are able to reduce the bezel size, they also reduce the rounding of the corners. This has the effect of making the last generation look toy-like and the new generation look more serious. They have used this pattern for like 20 years across many product lines.

Cars were like this when they were the conspicious consumption item of choice. Every year, new designs. Not always better, but forever permutation so old parts don't fit and so that the 2 year old models already looked 'dated'. Now we have phones as our way to show our buying power.

This is also the entire model of the fashion industry.

Absolutely, but there's more than one reason to buy a product, and people buying the cheapest and smallest model with last year's technology aren't generally the novelty-seeking "gotta have it" people. Especially people using an iPhone SE in 2020 and raving about how much they love the design. They're not going to win these people over with "new!"

This. A lot of hardcore ThinPad users wanted the same with the X200 design. Never happened.

The original SE was the first iphone that made me think of switching, because of that form factor...

Exactly. I'd pay more for a small phone than for the current monstrous flagships.