[1] Announced as an affordable model on February 19, 2025, it was released with a starting price of US$599, which is $170 more than its predecessor, the iPhone SE (3rd generation).

Powered by the A18 SoC (with 4 GPU cores instead of 5, unlike the regular iPhone 16), it includes an action button replacing the mute switch, a single 48MP Fusion camera (an optical zoom options including 1x and 2x), a custom Apple C1 cellular modem, and supports Apple Intelligence.

The iPhone 16e incorporates the Apple A18 system on a chip (SoC) with 4-core GPU.

The iPhone 16e has a 2-in-1 rear 48 MP Fusion camera with a single lens, like the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 to have the optical zoom in up to 2x, capable of recording 4K video at 24, 25, 30, or 60 fps, 1080p HD video at 25, 30 or 60 fps, or 720p HD video at 30 fps.

The camera has an aperture of ƒ/1.6, autofocus, optical image stabilization, and a quad-LED True Tone flash.

The front camera is now a TrueDepth camera with 12 MP, an aperture of f/1.9 and autofocus, capable of shooting 4K video at 25, 30 or 60 fps and slow-motion video at 120 fps.

The iPhone 16e's implementation of Portrait mode only natively supports images of humans, as the hardware does not produce depth maps through the use of focus pixels and instead relies on software-based machine learning.

Like the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, Portrait mode has depth control and an advanced bokeh effect (blurring effect of the out-of-focus background around the portrait).