My first iPhone was an iPhone 5C. I had to send in my Xperia Z Ultra to get fixed, and this was likely going to take a few weeks, so I needed a backup. For as few calls as I get and for as many things as I could have done on my tablet, I knew the moment I physically couldn't get to my phone for any length of time is likely to have become the peak of my popularity.
I could probably spend a week telling you why I never bothered with iPhones up until this point, suffice to say it's mostly circumstances. I went with the 5C as it was the inexpensive one, and I found it interesting that Apple had designed it that way, with slightly cheaper materials than its 5 and 5S siblings. I have to say my first impression was not positive, and not simply from going to a 4-inch screen from a 6+-inch "phablet" but from a fairly versatile and accommodating operating system like Android to something that frankly felt like a toy. I warmed up to it well enough, and the camera was certainly an improvement over the Xperia's, which always felt a little off. Pictures simply never looked as good as they could have, no matter how much I tweaked the settings. Maybe I just wasn't as adept at photography as years of 35mm had led me to believe. Maybe Sony was trying to upsell me on their add-on camera accessory (which I nearly sprang for). Maybe it was simply out of date compared to the 5C.
In any case, I switched back to the Xperia upon its return but kept the 5C as a camera. A few months later, I was going on a trip and didn't want to pack two different chargers (the other being my iPad), so I swapped SIM cards and never looked back. The Ultra was certainly worth it up until its internal battery finally bit it and Sony stopped supporting it; the larger screen made it a good gateway drug into digital art, but when Zenbrush's next iteration was going iPad exclusive, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Anyway, the 5C served me well until I was eligible for an upgrade, and that was when Apple delivered what is easily to date my favorite iPhone, the SE.
The SE was marketed almost as a kind of apology from Apple for the 6 and upcoming 7, as if to say, "Yeah, these are kinda chintzy and gimmicky, here's a not-Jitterbug model. KTHXBYE!" It reminded me of when I was a Linux user. Mint would release a new OS every year, with support typically overlapping by a few months or sometimes up to another year. If it seems laborious to reinstall an operating system on your PC every year, it is. You have to bear in mind Linux is generally targeted at people who probably spend more time with the access panels OFF their computers than ON. That said, there were plenty of more casual users who just wanted an OS that wasn't Windows or Mac. For these types, they offered "LTS" or long-term support versions of the OS. These were typically a previous year's version, usually one that was well-received, that offered support for 5 years instead of the typical 1-2ish.
This was more or less Apple's promise with the SE, that it was outside of the typical naming/numbering convention of the iPhones and therefore was meant to have a longer "shelf life" than the other models. It's easy to forget that Apple is rather supportive of their older hardware, to the point that properly "retiring" a device is practically headline material. As for what was being supported, the nuts and bolts of the SE were the guts (processor, memory, etc.) of a 6S in the shell of a 5S. For my money, this was genius. As I said, I loved the 5C. I still think the 5's were the best iPhones ever got. Now, those wanting to upgrade could get a little better performance while keeping all those accessories they'd built up over the years. Also, manufacturers of those accessories weren't going to have to liquidate their stuff. You had a legitimately stable platform. Granted, said platform only ended up lasting about 2 years, but September 2018 was only when it was discontinued. Support carried on for some time later, and as I said, you had a backlog of accessories and add-ons that would still work for it.
Rumors of an "SE2" abounded for years. Most of them were wishlists, along with some very detailed renders, but nearly all of them worked under the premise that Apple would start from scratch, designing from the ground up. It made sense, building on what already worked while fine-tuning certain shortcomings. It seemed as though people were missing the point of the SE, that it's not for following trends, that those hot, must-have gimmi--er, features are not for everyone. When it came time for Apple to unveil their next big lineup of flagship phones, the XR seemed to quash the majority of SE2 rumors. The XR seemed to fit the bill. It had the FaceID in lieu of a home button. It lacked the edge-to-edge display due to having a different type display than the others, but still made good use of the real estate. The camera was good, but kept the features list short enough to appease most casual photographers. Above all, it looked, for lack of a better term, like a toy. It looked, to the XS/Pro/Max, precisely what the 5C looked like to the 5 and 5S.
Fast-forward to 15 April 2020:
Before getting a better look at it, my first thought was that this new, proper SE would be a rebadge of an original X, maybe with a few hardware tweaks to bring the phone up to speed with something like the XR. What we got instead was an iPhone 8 with the internals of an 11. I wasn't too far off; the original 8 had the same internals as the X.The 8 also shares a similar form factor to the 7, with many accessories being cross-compatible. So, there you have it; we've hit all the hallmarks of the original SE.
Sadly, there's no rose gold option, but there's a Product (red) edition, and that suits me just fine. My Mophie battery case is certainly going to be a happy camper.
I could probably spend a week telling you why I never bothered with iPhones up until this point, suffice to say it's mostly circumstances. I went with the 5C as it was the inexpensive one, and I found it interesting that Apple had designed it that way, with slightly cheaper materials than its 5 and 5S siblings. I have to say my first impression was not positive, and not simply from going to a 4-inch screen from a 6+-inch "phablet" but from a fairly versatile and accommodating operating system like Android to something that frankly felt like a toy. I warmed up to it well enough, and the camera was certainly an improvement over the Xperia's, which always felt a little off. Pictures simply never looked as good as they could have, no matter how much I tweaked the settings. Maybe I just wasn't as adept at photography as years of 35mm had led me to believe. Maybe Sony was trying to upsell me on their add-on camera accessory (which I nearly sprang for). Maybe it was simply out of date compared to the 5C.
In any case, I switched back to the Xperia upon its return but kept the 5C as a camera. A few months later, I was going on a trip and didn't want to pack two different chargers (the other being my iPad), so I swapped SIM cards and never looked back. The Ultra was certainly worth it up until its internal battery finally bit it and Sony stopped supporting it; the larger screen made it a good gateway drug into digital art, but when Zenbrush's next iteration was going iPad exclusive, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Anyway, the 5C served me well until I was eligible for an upgrade, and that was when Apple delivered what is easily to date my favorite iPhone, the SE.
The SE was marketed almost as a kind of apology from Apple for the 6 and upcoming 7, as if to say, "Yeah, these are kinda chintzy and gimmicky, here's a not-Jitterbug model. KTHXBYE!" It reminded me of when I was a Linux user. Mint would release a new OS every year, with support typically overlapping by a few months or sometimes up to another year. If it seems laborious to reinstall an operating system on your PC every year, it is. You have to bear in mind Linux is generally targeted at people who probably spend more time with the access panels OFF their computers than ON. That said, there were plenty of more casual users who just wanted an OS that wasn't Windows or Mac. For these types, they offered "LTS" or long-term support versions of the OS. These were typically a previous year's version, usually one that was well-received, that offered support for 5 years instead of the typical 1-2ish.
This was more or less Apple's promise with the SE, that it was outside of the typical naming/numbering convention of the iPhones and therefore was meant to have a longer "shelf life" than the other models. It's easy to forget that Apple is rather supportive of their older hardware, to the point that properly "retiring" a device is practically headline material. As for what was being supported, the nuts and bolts of the SE were the guts (processor, memory, etc.) of a 6S in the shell of a 5S. For my money, this was genius. As I said, I loved the 5C. I still think the 5's were the best iPhones ever got. Now, those wanting to upgrade could get a little better performance while keeping all those accessories they'd built up over the years. Also, manufacturers of those accessories weren't going to have to liquidate their stuff. You had a legitimately stable platform. Granted, said platform only ended up lasting about 2 years, but September 2018 was only when it was discontinued. Support carried on for some time later, and as I said, you had a backlog of accessories and add-ons that would still work for it.
Rumors of an "SE2" abounded for years. Most of them were wishlists, along with some very detailed renders, but nearly all of them worked under the premise that Apple would start from scratch, designing from the ground up. It made sense, building on what already worked while fine-tuning certain shortcomings. It seemed as though people were missing the point of the SE, that it's not for following trends, that those hot, must-have gimmi--er, features are not for everyone. When it came time for Apple to unveil their next big lineup of flagship phones, the XR seemed to quash the majority of SE2 rumors. The XR seemed to fit the bill. It had the FaceID in lieu of a home button. It lacked the edge-to-edge display due to having a different type display than the others, but still made good use of the real estate. The camera was good, but kept the features list short enough to appease most casual photographers. Above all, it looked, for lack of a better term, like a toy. It looked, to the XS/Pro/Max, precisely what the 5C looked like to the 5 and 5S.
Fast-forward to 15 April 2020:
Before getting a better look at it, my first thought was that this new, proper SE would be a rebadge of an original X, maybe with a few hardware tweaks to bring the phone up to speed with something like the XR. What we got instead was an iPhone 8 with the internals of an 11. I wasn't too far off; the original 8 had the same internals as the X.The 8 also shares a similar form factor to the 7, with many accessories being cross-compatible. So, there you have it; we've hit all the hallmarks of the original SE.
- Not everyone likes "edge-to-edge" displays.
- Some people like the home button.
- FaceID isn't exactly reliable.
- Not everyone needs a bigger screen.
- Some people simply want a phone.
Sadly, there's no rose gold option, but there's a Product (red) edition, and that suits me just fine. My Mophie battery case is certainly going to be a happy camper.
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