No MagSafe

The iPhone 16e also lacks MagSafe support. That means no magnetics in the iPhone and no 15W wireless charging. The lack of magnets can be made up for with a case, but you’ll be stuck with the 7.5W charging speeds.

In some ways, this shouldn’t be a big surprise, as no iPhone SE has ever supported MagSafe. However, this isn’t really an iPhone SE anymore, is it? Omitting MagSafe on a member of the iPhone 16 family feels wrong somehow.

Some rumors are circulating today that magnets could interfere with Apple’s new C1 modem chip and 5G antenna array. We’re not putting much stock in those, as Apple has been working on this chip for at least six years; if it can’t figure out how to deal with magnetic fields, the chip should never have been released in the first place (or somebody on Apple’s engineering team needs to be fired).

The most likely explanation for the lack of MagSafe is the simplest one: Apple is cutting corners to keep the iPhone 16e reasonably affordable. In an era when even Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra still doesn’t include magnets for Qi2 charging, Apple isn’t going to lose any sleep about omitting this from its cheapest iPhone.