This was a big week for the iPhone, as Apple finally revealed the iPhone SE’s replacement and the iOS 18.4 beta release. Here are the biggest stories you might have missed.

The Big News

This Is the $600 iPhone 16e

Apple has announced the iPhone 16E, the long-awaited replacement for the iPhone SE. It has most of the functionality of the iPhone 16 at a $200 discount, and pre-orders begin on Friday, February 21. Continue reading…

Your iPhone Wants to Suggest Your Next Meal

Your iPhone already does a ton of stuff, but have you had it suggest you recipes? It’s something you probably didn’t think you needed until now, but if you want to let your phone take over and decide what you should eat, this new feature on Apple News+ might be what you’re looking for. Continue reading…

Chrome and Google iPhone Apps Are Getting Circle-To-Search

One of the most recent, and useful, improvements we’ve seen on Android phones is the addition of Circle to Search, which lets you circle anything on your screen to search it on the web. Now, thanks to Google Lens, iPhones are getting pretty close to that. Continue reading…

This iPhone SE Is Stuck Inside a Nokia Lumia 1020

We’ve seen countless hardware mods on iPhones over the years, but someone just set out to make one of the wildest ones we’ve seen. The result is an iPhone that looks and very much feels like a Nokia Lumia phone. Continue reading…

iPhone 16e Graphics Performance Falls Short of iPhone 15 Pro

An early benchmark of the iPhone 16e reveals that graphics performance, while good, falls slightly short of the iPhone 15 Pro. This is to be expected, given that the new 16e uses a binned version of the A18 chipset. Continue reading…

The Other Stuff

The recipes in Apple News+ are part of the iOS 18.4 update, which started rolling out to beta testers on Friday. It also includes a dedicated companion app for Vision Pro owners, a new ambient music option in the Control Center, and a few other minor changes.

With the iPhone 16e serving as the new low-end iPhone, Apple also officially discontinued the iPhone SE this week. It marks the end of Touch ID, physical home buttons, LCD screens, and the Lightning port on currently-sold iPhones. Apple also no longer sells any phones with screens under 6.1 inches.

In other news, Apple is pulling its Advanced Data Protection feature in the United Kingdom, following a request from the UK government to implement a security backdoor. ADP is a feature that secures all iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, so no one can access your data except you and your trusted connections. It’s still available in the United States and other countries, at least for now.