For some time now, we have been hoping that Apple would release a successor to last year's popular iPhone SE. This affordable smartphone garnered a lot of attention and praise, especially for its price-to-performance ratio. Many have high hopes for the rumored iPhone SE 3.

However, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via MacRumors) claims that Apple will not release the iPhone SE 3 at all in 2021, but will wait a full year from now, in early 2022.

So it is disappointing, especially since we were hoping that Apple would address some of the iPhone SE (2020)'s weaknesses as soon as possible. However, one cannot blame the company for wanting to capitalize on the popularity of a device that is still in production.

Kuo also said that the iPhone SE 3 will have 5G and a newer chipset (perhaps A14?) He said the new model will have a similar design to the current iPhone SE. It remains to be seen whether Apple will continue to use the iPhone 8 body or offer something similar and more compact.

At the very least, we would like to see Apple increase the screen size from 4.7" to 5" or larger, but we do not know if that will happen.

Regardless, this news does not make the iPhone SE (2020) any less of a purchase. Even though it does not have a dedicated night mode, it has high-class performance and solid photography capabilities. We hope Apple will surprise us, but we don't recommend getting our hopes up right now.