iphone 5 camera spots

I too had several purple specs in my photos. They are caused by very small dust particles that have gotten dislodged in the actual camera lens which means there is no way to even blow the dust off the lens. The only solution, aside from spending $270 on a replacement phone, is to buy a replacement camera on Amazon for like $15 and then do the replacement yourself, like I did!

There are plenty of great tutorials on YouTube that show you how to properly replace the camera on your iPhones. I replaced mine on my iPhone 5 and it took me an hour to do. I had to purchase a special tool kit as well that let me use the tools needed to do what I needed to do with an iPhone but the tool only costs like $12 as well so it's still worth it.

I'm now holding a perfectly working iPhone 5 with a new camera lens that works perfects so I couldn't be happier having done the repair myself!

Hi MrBYU,

I talked about this earlier in this thread and I had the same problem. But I'm pretty good with my hands and so what I did was purchase a replacement camera lens and I fixed it myself! The new lens was only about $15 or so and so it turned out to be a very cheap fix and about an hour of my time to do the replacement. I was able to find a youtube video showing step by step how to replace it and so I followed that to a T and it worked perfectly the first time, no problems and now I am back to using the camera almost daily. So if you think you can fix it yourself, I would recomment trying it. Just make sure you follow the step by step instructions and buy the camera lens off of amazon, that's where I got mine, and also buy the tools that you need that's specific for iDevices and with a little bit of patience, you'll have your phone working perfectly again and for a mere few bucks!

CLEANED OUT DUST FROM INSIDE LENS IPHONE 5, NO MORE DARK SPOTS

I've had 3 dark spots on my inner lens too for 3 months and I take lots of pictures and it was bugging me. After I researched here and saw that a lot of people had the same problem and I saw your video I knew there was a way to fix it. But first I went to the apple genius bar this morning to make sure and they agreed it was dust inside, He said a replacement iphone for me would be $269.00 since I was out of warranty. ***? Im sure I will upgrade to the next iPhone when it comes out later this year or get a iPhone 5s. But for now happy again with my iPhone 5.

But on the way home i happen to find a store called Digital Clinic in Torrance ,CA that opened my iphone and cleaned the lens for $25.00. ALL GOOD NOW! THANKS AGAIN TO THIS FORUM.

CLEANED OUT DUST FROM INSIDE LENS IPHONE 5, NO MORE DARK SPOTS

I've had 3 dark spots on my inner lens too for 3 months and I take lots of pictures and it was bugging me. After I researched here and saw that a lot of people had the same problem and I saw your video I knew there was a way to fix it. But first I went to the apple genius bar this morning to make sure and they agreed it was dust inside, He said a replacement iphone for me would be $269.00 since I was out of warranty. ***? Im sure I will upgrade to the next iPhone when it comes out later this year or get a iPhone 5s. But for now happy again with my iPhone 5.

But on the way home i happen to find a store called Digital Clinic in Torrance ,CA that opened my iphone and cleaned the lens for $25.00. ALL GOOD NOW! THANKS AGAIN TO THIS FORUM.

my iPhone is out of warranty. and didn't notice the dust under the camera lens until the other day. don't remember any dust under the lens previously. so, don't think can claim this started when the iphone was under warranty.

anyways, recently, a couple months ago, had the iPhone worked on at a local repair shop to replace the power button and the battery. the techs would have used compressed air to clean out the inside of the iphone. so, the iphone was very clean on the inside. well, a month after this, got into the habit of putting my iphone in my pants pocket. previously never did that. but sure enough, what happens is that dust somehow gets in under the lens. it was very annoying to see a bunch of dust under the lens when first noticed this the other day.

didn't want to go to a repair place again to just clean this out. it was my mess and therefore wanted to clean it myself. so, decided to do this myself. there is a youtube video on how to do this. search for: How to Get Rid of Dust inside iPhone 5 Camera Lens. Easy, but the only difficult part was opening up the iphone. fortunately had all the tools already, but had to buy a can of compressed air (for $7 at home depot) to blow out the dust specs. you would think that dust would not get into the camera lens. but it apparently does happen if you put your iphone in your pockets. if you are not too scared to open up your iphone, and out of warranty, then you may want to give this a try. get a can of compressed air, and blow the dust out.

i did get a replacement iphone 5 and the Apple staff did mentioned that apparently the seal around the lense has fault and allowing dust in. whether it is offically recognised by Apple is another issue. btw. when they say it's a replacement phone, it's actually a highly graded refurbed phones, not brand new! however, it looked brand new and i was happy because there were few other faults that i've discovered with my original iphone, one of which was the external speakers when playing music... it goes loud and quiet. this issue is also being discussed on other forums too!

Just got back from the Apple Store. They replaced my iPhone 5 with a new one. They had never seen anything like this. I printed out a bunch of prints so all could see. Many of the "Geniuses" were amazed that something like this was actually true. One guy said it was some sort of material on on the lens beneath the glass. I think it's a sensor issue (debris) but he said no way. Regardless, they replaced it and my Restore is almost done.

Nice support Apple!

I noticed this issue with my phone just a few weeks ago. Finally took it in to the Genius Bar today. I showed the genius what the problem was and he immediately recognized it. He offered to replace it right away without cost, no questions asked. BTW I was still covered by AppleCare. When I asked him, he said that it was caused by a chip in the camera sensor and not by anything I might have done to the phone. I left the store happily no more than 15 minutes from my appointment time.

I took my iphone back and I really thought that Apple was going to give me a hard time with replacing it. I was wrong. At the Genius Bar the guy pretty much said "I deal with a lot of customers that complain. I am just going replace it for you". 10 minutes later I got a new phone!

I also had dust on my iphone 5 sensor. I can't imagine how it got there. Took it to an Apple store(May, 2013) and, of course, they nerer heard of this problem with iphone 5. They took it in the back of the store to check it out(probably to maks sure it was not tampered with). They gave me a new phone as it was still under apple care.

Yeah, my genius only had "one other time" where this happened. He obviously has had a lot of people return it for this issue, since he looked at it for 10 sec and already started the replacement process.

While I was setting up my phone and he moved on to the next customer, he told them "Apple doesn't refurbish anything!" and that she'd be getting a brand new phone for paying the $ to replace her cracked iPhone 4.

yes the apple store should swap it out fore a new phone, they don't really take the phone apart and go and fix it, only when its something small, but this problem that you have would involve taking the phone apart and cleaning the lens ect.

My story (in case it helps anyone figure out what they want to do)...

I bought the 64GB iPhone 5 the night it was available for pre-order in the US from the Apple Store app (on my old iPhone 4).

I didn't notice the 2 splotches and 2 black flakes until last week, but I do now see them in my older photos -- appearing right about 1 year after I bought it. Had I noticed this, I might have been able to get a free replacement as AhmadH did. I did not get AppleCare for this phone (for the first time ever), so September 2013 it went out of warranty.

When I brought the phone in, they said it was out of warranty, so they would not repair/replace it for free.

I keep my phone in good shape, so (when I found out the repair wouldn't be free) I opted to "recycle" the phone with Appleand use the credit to buy a 5s.

The "recycle" credit they offered was ~$245 (for a phone in good shape other than the defective camera) and is close to what I would have gotten on eBay given the bad camera.

I've got the same exact purple specks in different locations. Just appeared today. My iPhone 5 is 17 months old, Genius Bar said it's dead pixels and they could replace it for $270! I said thanks but no thanks. I'm eligible for an early upgrade in May with AT&T so will just deal with it then or just wait for the next iPhone in September.

I had the same spot on my camera. Took it to Apple tonight where they looked at it and said "you'll probably need a new one". They did try to see if it was dust and blow it out, but it wasnt. The phone was under a year old, so they just swapped it out for a new one. Had an 8 o'clock appointment and was out of there by 8:20.