Apple introduces iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini in a stunning new purple

Cupertino, California Apple today unveiled an all-new stunning purple finish for iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini. This new colour beautifully accentuates the flat aluminium edges of iPhone 12, which are perfectly colour-matched to the precision-milled back glass. Both models feature an advanced dual-camera system that delivers powerful computational photography features and the highest-quality video in a smartphone, with expansive edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR displays with OLED for a brighter, more immersive viewing experience, and the Ceramic Shield front cover, providing the biggest jump in durability ever on iPhone. The Apple-designed A14 Bionic — the fastest chip in a smartphone — powers every experience on iPhone 12 while efficiently managing battery life. iPhone 12 models also bring the best 5G experience, and introduce high-powered wireless charging with MagSafe and a new ecosystem of accessories that easily attach to iPhone.

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini in purple will be available for pre-order beginning Friday, April 23, with availability beginning Friday, April 30. Customers can also complement their iPhone with a new MagSafe Leather Case or Leather Sleeve in Deep Violet, a Silicone Case in Capri Blue, Pistachio, Cantaloupe, or Amethyst, or a Leather Wallet in Arizona, all available to order beginning today.

“The incredible iPhone 12 is the most popular smartphone in the world, and the iPhone 12 family has an over 99 percent customer satisfaction rate. The new purple finish, just in time for spring, adds another bright and fun option to the lineup, and we think customers are going to love it,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “This gorgeous new colour joins the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini family, which is available in five other stunning finishes, and features an advanced dual-camera system, Super Retina XDR display, improved durability, A14 Bionic — the fastest chip ever in a smartphone — great battery life, and the best 5G experience on any smartphone.”

The elevated design of the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 and 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini are as beautiful as they are durable.¹ And iPhone 12 mini is the smallest 5G smartphone in the world, packing all the technology of iPhone 12 into a delightfully compact size while still delivering an impressively large and immersive edge-to-edge display. Both models feature a sleek flat-edge design with an aerospace-grade aluminium enclosure and combined with the Ceramic Shield front cover, which goes beyond glass by adding a new high-temperature crystallisation step that grows nano-ceramic crystals within the glass matrix, increases drop performance by 4x.² 

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini feature all-screen Super Retina XDR displays that stretch further to the edges, with systemwide colour management for industry-leading colour accuracy. This new OLED provides pixel precision brightness, 2 million-to-1 contrast ratio for true blacks, and an immersive HDR viewing experience for high-definition video, photos with more detail, and nearly twice the peak brightness of iPhone 11. 

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini have an industry-leading IP68 rating for water resistance up to 6 meters for up to 30 minutes, and are protected against everyday spills, including coffee and soda.³

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini deliver powerful computational photography features enabled by A14 Bionic and a dual-camera system, bringing an unparalleled camera experience that makes it easier than ever to intuitively capture the perfect photograph or video. This advanced camera system features the Ultra Wide camera and a new Wide camera with an ƒ/1.6 aperture, the fastest yet on iPhone, providing 27 percent more light for even more amazing low-light photos and videos. Computational photography is taken to the next level on iPhone 12 models with Night mode and faster-performing Deep Fusion now on all cameras — TrueDepth, Wide, and Ultra Wide — for improved photos in any environment. Customers will experience brighter pictures and better contrast for photos shot in low-light settings with Night mode, and more texture and less noise in Deep Fusion photos. Smart HDR 3 uses machine learning (ML) to intelligently adjust the white balance, contrast, texture, and saturation of a photo for remarkably natural-looking images.

iPhone 12 features the first camera to shoot HDR video with Dolby Vision and is the first and only device in the world to enable an end-to-end Dolby Vision experience,⁴ allowing customers to easily capture, edit, and share cinema-grade videos natively on iPhone. Dolby Vision grading is processed live while recording, and sustained during editing, whether in the Photos app, iMovie, or Final Cut Pro.⁵ And playback on iPhone 12 is more realistic than ever on the industry-leading Super Retina XDR display. Both models also feature improved cinematic video stabilisation, even more true-to-life selfie videos with Dolby Vision, and Night mode Time-Lapse, offering longer exposure times for sharper videos, better light trails, and smoother exposure in low-light scenarios when used with a tripod.

A14 Bionic is the first chip in the smartphone industry built on 5-nanometer process. Faster and more efficient than ever, A14 Bionic has the fastest CPU and GPU in a smartphone, enabling console-quality gaming experiences, powerful computational photography, and more, while delivering great battery life. Pushing the limits of ML, A14 Bionic features a 16-core Neural Engine — for an 80 percent increase in performance — that is capable of completing 11 trillion operations per second, enabling improved performance on even the most intense ML models.

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini deliver an advanced 5G experience on a global scale, engineered with a seamless integration of world-class hardware and world-class software. 5G on iPhone boasts improved speeds for faster downloads and uploads, higher-quality video streaming, more responsive gaming, real-time interactivity in apps, FaceTime in high definition, and more. Customers will also be able to enjoy a secure, fast connection, reducing the need to connect to public Wi-Fi hotspots.

Featuring the most 5G bands on any smartphone, iPhone 12 models offer the broadest 5G coverage worldwide.⁶ Models in the US support millimetre wave, the higher-frequency version of 5G, allowing iPhone 12 to reach speeds up to 4Gbps, even in densely populated areas. iPhone 12 models also feature Smart Data mode, which extends battery life by intelligently assessing 5G needs and balancing data usage, speed, and power in real time.

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini in purple ship with iOS 14.5, which features the ability to unlock iPhone with Apple Watch while wearing a face mask, an enhanced Apple Podcasts app with redesigned show and episode pages, and a Search tab, as well as new emoji. In addition, Siri no longer has a default voice and will include more diverse voice options in English. This latest software update builds on the release of iOS 14, which delivered a major update to the Home Screen with beautifully redesigned widgets and the App Library, new ways to use apps with App Clips, and powerful updates to Messages.⁷

MagSafe improves wireless charging for a better, more efficient experience, and introduces an ecosystem of easy-to-attach accessories that beautifully complement iPhone 12 models.⁸ MagSafe delivers a unique experience to iPhone, featuring an array of magnets around the wireless charging coil, optimised for alignment and efficiency, that perfectly connects to iPhone every time. MagSafe chargers efficiently provide up to 15W of power, while still accommodating existing Qi-enabled devices. Charging solutions include the MagSafe Charger and MagSafe Duo Charger for use with iPhone and Apple Watch, as well as silicone, leather, and clear cases that easily snap onto the back of iPhone, the Leather Sleeve, and the Leather Wallet. Customers can also expect innovative MagSafe accessories from third-party manufacturers.

Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to have net zero climate impact across the entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and all product life cycles. This means that every Apple device sold, from material collection, component manufacturing, assembly, transport, customer use, charging, all the way through recycling and material recovery, will be 100 percent carbon neutral.

iPhone 12 models utilise 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, including the camera, Taptic Engine, and MagSafe, as well as Apple’s MagSafe accessories. Apple also removed the power adapter and EarPods from iPhone packaging, further reducing carbon emissions and avoiding the mining and use of precious materials, which enables smaller and lighter packaging, and allows for 70 percent more boxes to be shipped on a pallet. Taken altogether, these changes will cut over 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually, equivalent to removing nearly 450,000 cars from the road per year.