The iPhone SE 4 that came back to life is dead again

iPhone SE 4 on-again-off-again may be off again. After a report this week revived hopes that Apple was working on a new budget handset model based on the iPhone 14, a new report has dashed those hopes as quickly as they arrived.

The one crushing this time is analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who tweeted

Thursday that Apple is actually using a prototype iPhone SE to test its in-house 5G modem that it has been developing for some time now. However, this “derivative model” of the iPhone SE is strictly for internal testing and Apple has “no plans for mass production and sales”, according to Kuo.

iPhone SE 4 Search and Prediction Updates:

1. I previously predicted that the iPhone SE 4 would be a derivative model of the iPhone 14. However, my latest research indicates that this derivative model will likely be an engineering prototype for Apple’s internal 5G baseband … https://t. co/9m5SjSvrKS

—Ming-Chi Kuo (@mingchikuo) April 13, 2023

As Kuo points out, his tweet is basically a throwback to a Tweeter he did in February who said Apple had “restarted” development of the iPhone SE, which followed a report

in January, Apple canceled the iPhone SE 4. So now it seems that the iPhone SE 4 is either dead again or it was always dead.

Kuo’s tweet on Thursday comes after analyst Jeff Pu announced that Apple will launch the iPhone SE 4 in 2025. Regarding the 5G modem, Kuo says that if testing goes well, “mass production could start as early as 2025. But if testing falls below expectations, the schedule could be pushed back to 2026 or later.