In the weeks following the iPhone 5's launch, some owners of the device began complaining of a "purple flare" effect that would appear in photos taken in or around bright light. Those complaints have continued to crop up since late September, and now Apple has decided to respond to them with a dedicated support page on its website. In the document, the Cupertino firm says that the flaring can be caused by a light source that's positioned at a way in which "it causes a reflection off the surfaces inside the camera module and onto the camera sensor." Apple notes that "most small cameras, including those in every generation of iPhone" can be susceptible to such flaring, and it recommends that users move their camera slightly to alter the way that light is entering the lens or shield the lens with a hand in order to try and eliminate any flares.

While reports of this purple flaring began appearing shortly after the launch of the iPhone 5, The Next Web shows a similar flaring in an image captured by an iPhone 4S, with the iPhone 5 actually producing less of a flare effect than the 4S. The site notes that the flaring is an issue that affects many lenses, just as Apple says in its support document. Still, iPhone 5 users that encounter any purple flaring in their images are likely to want an answer from Apple about what's going on, and now the company has a support document to point them to. The full support page can be found at the Apple link below.

Via MacRumors, The Next Web, Apple