This story has been updates as of Nov 2013. Skip to: Replacement iPhone
After having taken around 1000 pictures and over 30 minutes of flawless HD video with my iPhone 5 (64Gb), it suddenly started giving me weird results.
The first Pink Stripes
The first irregularity appeared as stripes in the top of a video, giving resemblance to a severely broken VHS tape. I first thought the irregular pink stripes was only on-screen, but reviewing the recording proved the noise was burnt in.
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Five hours passed until I tested the camera again. This time the noise was much more apparent, sometimes filling almost the entire screen. The camera was active the whole time, so I took a few snaps and screenshots.
Not only video
At this stage, the signal/noise ratio was approximately 3:1, making it difficult, but not impossible to take a noiseless picture. I managed to get a comparison by taking pictures in a fast rate. These two images are approx. ½ second apart.
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The problem was also apparent in 3d party apps like ProHDR.
After 30 minutes of active testing, the S/N had scaled to such a degree that the camera was practically useless. The stripes appeared 80-90% of the time the camera was active, and would now freeze the camera app completely after 10-15 seconds.
The first stripes were taken 16:45, the last 23:54. Although I wasn’t taking film and pictures the whole time, the noise was “active” for a good 7 hours, going from just a little to a whole lotta love in this period of time.
Troubleshooting
First of all, I was on our cabin in the mountains when this occurred. There is no 3G there (or at least very little), and the signal bars on the iPhone vary from 1-5 bars of Edge. The atmospheric conditions on this particular night was medium snowfall, dense skies, temperature around 0°C (Thats 32°F for you non-metric people).
I’m no electro engineer, but taking hints from my days of stage-PA and the EMR effect any cellphone radio can have on other electronic equipment – my best guess would be that this has something to do with proximity between the antenna and the camera circutry. I base this on the purely subjective fact that – when holdning the iPhone in the vicinity a loudspeaker, the audio noise from the speaker seemed to cohere with the visual noise.
My guess is that the Edge network, operating at the lower 850 MHz band, interfered with the camera module, and because of the atmospheric conditions, the network handshaking needed extra output power. Or the other way around, that the phone found a weak 3G signal, and tried real bad to connect to it by upping the antenna gain. If this assumption is right, my guess would be that this video is from an area with similarly low coverage / Edge.
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A Working (Quick)Fix
As pointed out by Pete in the comments, there is a working fix: Just Turn Airplane Mode on, and shoot noise–, error- and stripe-less pictures and video to your heart’s content. Although this is no optimal or permanent solution, it will give you access to the camera in a pinch. You can also try the old, ‘temporary fix’.
Temporary fix (old version)
As noted in the comments, this fix has proven to be too flimsy for real world use. Since you might have use for it, I’m not going to delete it. Click here (or scroll down) for a working fix.
I concluded that rebooting didn’t work, but a hard reset seems to have fixed the problem for the time being. The stripes reappeared the first minutes, but diminished and then disappeared completely after some time. This might be purely coincidental. Perhaps the skies cleared out, perhaps the phone was out of pink juice for the time being.
Refund / replacement
I was hoping this problem might be fixed via a software update, or that it would reduce in intensity / not be that much of a problem, but no software updates has helped, and photographing in rural areas is just pure pain. I am now asking for a refund/replacement phone from Apple. Will post how the progress. (August 2013)
Refund pt. 2: Updated November 2013
After coming home from vacation, I immediately got on the line with Apple and asked for a replacement. Since the problem is very sporadic, and that the problem is somewhat undocumented on the net (also – my girlfriend has the exact same model iPhone as me, bought only a few months later. She has never seen the pink static.) I was worried that normal diagnostics wouldn’t suffice, and that I would get the old phone back. I made it very clear that the static only became apparent in rural areas with low coverage / on EDGE or 3G with bad signal / high antenna gain. While the Apple support members I spoke with didn’t seem to have first hand experience with this problem before, the process went smooth.
I asked for a replacement phone while they diagnostisiced it. As everything Apple support, the process went fast and smooth. I had a new phone in my hand by the end of day 2 or 3, and two weeks later my original phone was (seemingly) recalled.
So – what about my new iPhone? Is the problem gone?
As a matter of fact – NO, it isn’t. But at least – this version has far less of it. So far, I have only had pink static two times, in the same rural areas. But as far as support goes, it should be no problem for you experiencing this problem to get a replacement unit. That being said – Norway (where I reside) – has three years of complimentary guarantee for all mobile devices, put forth by the government. Your mileage may vary in other countries, and AppleCare might be necessary if you’re out of the 1 year complimentary guarantee of Apple.
Gallery of iPhone 5 camera static/stripes/noise
Update february 2013: I have taken over 15 minutes of video and around 300 pictures since the first pink party. Some in dense 3G areas, some in Edge county. None has any of the artifacts described in this post.
Update march 2013: New pink stripes. This time taken in the subway in the middle of Oslo. Camera was fine when exiting the subway.
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Update, march 2013: Back on our cabin, and thick lines of noise appear instantly.
Update, June 2013: Northern part of Norway = bad reception and lots of pink striping. Some of these images are HDR’s, so you’ll see some examples with trasparent noise. The completely white/pink image, could be a digital correction mask for camera vignetting.
