iPhone 8Source: iMore

What you need to know

  • The rumored iPhone SE 2 could be called iPhone 9.
  • There might actually be two, rather than just one.
  • But the report isn't particularly solid.

I'll start this by saying that this report comes courtesy of DigiTimes, an outlet that I have previously called "reliably unreliable." So keep that in mind as you read on. But make sure you do read on. Because there might be some meat on these bones after all.

According to the report Apple's long-rumored iPhone SE 2 will instead be called iPhone 9, something we've heard before. That isn't the interesting part here. What caught our eye (via 9to5Mac) was the fact DigiTimes thinks that we'll get two iPhone 9 models this year. Rather than just the one.

The site appears to be basing that on supply chain sources – Chipbond Technology in particular. The company makes display driver chips for LCD screens and it says it's received orders for two different screen sizes. Hence the reason you're reading this today.

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There could be a couple of things in play here. The first is that it could just be that Apple is getting its iPhone 9 screens from two different suppliers with slightly different driver chips needed. That's a scenario 9to5Mac suggested and it makes tons of sense. But there's an alternative scenario that might also work.

Is it possible that the previous iPhone SE 2 naming has thrown us all off, and all we're really seeing here is a replacement for iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus? An iPhone 9 lineup replacing iPhone 8 would fill Apple's budget needs. And we've already heard that the so-called iPhone SE 2/iPhone 9 won't have a small screen. It's also said to look like iPhone 8 with new, improved innards. As our very own Rene Ritchie would say, this makes the kind of sense that just....does.