If you recall, the third-gen iPhone SE packs a smaller 4.7-inch Retina HD display. Young did not say whether or not he believes the notch will contain a TrueDepth camera array to power Face ID. It is plausible that Apple will forego the feature and stick with the tried and true Touch ID sensor to keep costs down. Adopting a larger screen would likely force Apple to delete the capacitive Touch ID Home button typically located below the display and relocate it to the side of the handset, like on the iPad mini and iPad Air.
If Apple does stick with Touch ID, the front-facing notch could be quite slim as it would not be playing host to Face ID components. An iPhone SE without a bottom-mounted Touch ID Home button would likely resemble an iPhone XR. That device also featured a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display but had a larger notch to accommodate Face ID. The iPhone SE is Apple’s most affordable smartphone. Pricing for the current-gen model starts at $429 with 64GB of internal storage and tops out at $579 for 256GB of local space. The fourth-gen iPhone SE is expected to launch sometime in 2024. A price bump could be in order considering Apple added $30 to the cost of the iPhone SE third-gen when it debuted earlier this year. In other iPhone news, Apple analyst Mark Gurman believes next year’s models will be the first iPhone to ditch the Lightning connector in favor of USB-C. The new connector is unlikely to stick around as long as the 30-pin and Lightning connector did, however, as Gurman anticipates a fully wireless iPhone in the not-too-distant future. Image credit: Tyler Lastovich, Torsten Dettlaff
