Apple’s special media event is now in the books and, per usual, there’s a whole lot to pore over. From the intriguing new design of the Apple Watch Series 4 to Apple’s 2018 iPhone lineup, Apple today set the table for what may very well be the company’s most lucrative holiday quarter in history. The only potential hiccup to a record-breaking quarter is the fact that the iPhone XS won’t launch until October.
Apple’s new products aside, it’s worth noting that Apple today seemingly axed a number of existing iPhones from its product lineup. When Apple’s online store came back online following today’s keynote, a number of devices were conspicuously missing, including the iPhone SE, the iPhone 6s and the iPhone X.
Now the fact that the iPhone 6s was removed from Apple’s online store is certainly no surprise given that the device is now about three years old. Even the fact that Apple discontinued last year’s iPhone X shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given that the new iPhone XS seemingly serves as an entry-level option for consumers eager to pick up a new device without necessarily breaking the bank. What’s more, reports going back a few months relayed that Apple had plans to completely eliminate the 2017 iPhone X from its product line.
What is surprising, though, is Apple’s decision to eliminate the iPhone SE altogether. Though the iPhone SE is more than two years old at this point, the device is beloved by a small but vocal user base who simply prefer a smaller form factor at an extremely affordable price point. Indeed, even Apple executives remarked that the iPhone SE was markedly more popular than they initially anticipated when the device first launched back in March of 2016.
While Apple will hopefully release an iPhone SE 2 some time within the next few months, there’s certainly no guarantee. There have been rumblings that Apple is primarily focused on ramping up production of the XS and XR models and that an update to the iPhone SE is the least of the company’s worries at the moment. In a worst-case scenario, the iPhone SE will mark the last compact iPhone model to ever appear in an Apple store.
