New iPhone 17e leak suggests we’ll get a new model every year – here’s when to expect it and what we want to see

• The iPhone 17e is being tipped to arrive next year
• A slightly later launch date in May 2026 is rumored
• It suggests an annual refresh for the new ‘e’ series

Given we had to wait three years between the iPhone SE 3 and its sort-of successor the iPhone 16e, it was unclear what the upgrade cycle would be for the most affordable iPhone going forward – but now it seems we’re set to get annual refreshes.

According to well-known tipster Fixed Focus Digital (via MacRumors), work on the iPhone 17e production line is now “on the agenda” (as per Google Translate), and we should see the phone in May 2026 according to a follow-up post.

That’s a little later in the year than the iPhone 16e, which was of course unveiled in February of this year. Maybe Apple is rearranging its schedule to try and boost sales, or to accommodate the iPhone 17 and 18, or to deal with the ongoing US tariff issues.

This particular leak doesn’t make any mention of what we can expect from the iPhone 17e, though a speed bump is likely. Apple probably won’t change too much in terms of the look of the handset, considering it got a pretty big design revamp this year.

What we want to see

If Apple does settle down to an annual refresh of its ‘e’ line-up – much like the ‘a’ line-up for the Google Pixels – then that’s to be applauded. Having more options in terms of pricing and design when choosing smartphones is always good for consumers.

There are two rather obvious changes Apple could make with the iPhone 17e, however. The first is to add MagSafe, which was rather strangely left off the iPhone 16e and meant that the phone was instantly incompatible with a whole range of accessories.

The second change (which perhaps contradicts the other one) would be to drop the price to something truly budget. The iPhone 16e starts at $599 / £599 / AU$999, compared to the $429 / £419 / AU$719 of its predecessor (albeit for 64GB of storage rather than 128GB).

In our iPhone 16e review, we called the device “a bit of a frustrating conundrum”, with some big pluses and some big minuses to talk about. In other words, there’s definitely room for improvement with next year’s iPhone 17e.