On the one hand, Apple’s latest iPhone is a huge victory. The iPhone 16E comes with most of what you’d want from a smartphone — a modern processor, a good camera, nice design — for hundreds of dollars less than you’d typically spend on a brand-new device. On the other hand, it’s a bit odd that this thing exists at all. It’s missing a couple of the best things about the iPhone ecosystem — MagSafe, multiple cameras — and if you’re already spending $600 on a phone, it’s not clear that another $200 is a particularly huge deal. So why does the 16E exist? And who is it for?
The ups and downs of the iPhone 16E
On The Vergecast: cheap phones, expensive AI gadgets, and the future of James Bond.
On The Vergecast: cheap phones, expensive AI gadgets, and the future of James Bond.
is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we try and figure it out. With Nilay on vacation, David is joined by The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes and Allison Johnson to go through all the ins and outs of Apple’s latest smartphone. We talk about the trades Apple made to bring the price down, the ones it maybe should have made instead, and just how big a deal the new C1 modem might turn out to be.
After that, the three co-hosts talk about the other gadget news of the week. We marvel over the Oppo Find N5, a lovely foldable smartphone that none of us will ever own. We pour one out for the Humane AI Pin, the would-be smartphone successor that has now become a paperweight. And we wonder if the Rabbit R1, the other disastrous AI gadget, might be slowly turning into something more compelling.
Finally, in the lightning round — split into two lightning rounds, double lightning round! — Jake and David talk about the end of Amazon Chime, The New York Times’ new rules for AI, Microsoft’s latest quantum breakthrough, what’s coming for James Bond, and the latest in Spotify’s quixotic journey toward high-fidelity streaming. Then Lauren Feiner joins to take us through the week in Trump and DOGE. We talk about the latest tariffs being levied by the Trump administration, Elon Musk’s latest incursions into the federal government, and what might happen next.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first on the iPhone 16E:
- Apple launches the iPhone 16E
- How the new iPhone 16E compares to the rest of Apple’s iPhone 16 lineup
- 8 important things to know about the iPhone 16E
- Verge staffers react to the iPhone 16E: what we love and don’t love
- The iPhone is done with home buttons — here’s why I’ll miss it
- Apple no longer sells new iPhones with Lightning ports
- Apple’s first in-house iPhone modem is the C1
And in other gadget news:
- Oppo Find N5 review: the final evolution of foldables
- The world’s thinnest foldable phone doesn’t come cheap
- Humane is shutting down the AI Pin and selling its remnants to HP
- The Humane AI Pin never had a chance
- Rabbit shows off the AI agent it should have launched with
- Amazon’s revamped Alexa might launch over a month after its announcement event
And in the lightning round:
- Microsoft announces quantum computing breakthrough with Majorana 1 chip
- A death knell for Chime
- Mira Murati launches rival to OpenAI called Thinking Machines Lab
- The New York Times adopts AI tools in the newsroom
- Amazon now has creative control over the James Bond franchise
- Spotify’s HiFi streaming could finally arrive this year
- Treasury inspector general will investigate DOGE payments access
- Trump threatens 25 percent ‘and higher’ tariff on chips.
- Trump issues an executive order claiming more oversight of independent agencies like the FTC and FCC.
- DOGE’s alleged cost-cutting achievements included a few extra zeroes.
- DOGE can keep accessing government data for now, judge rules
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