iPhone 18 users demand refunds for £1,199 device 'defected' weeks after purchase

Users of the iPhone 18 Pro have demanded refunds after spotting what appears to be a discolouration on their new phones.

The new iPhone starts at a whopping £1,199, with the Pro Max model starting at £1,299 and costing as much as £2,499 with additional mod cons added on to the basic model.

In short, it's a very expensive phone, and some buyers are already complaining about a change in colour around the camera on the new model, the New York Post reports.

There, users spotted how the colouring appeared to already started to fade slightly despite the devices still being relatively new, having only been released on 18 September.

The issue seems to especially affect certain colours of the new model, with the burgundy and black models seeing the discolouration around the three lenses on the back camera.

Taking to Reddit to share the issue and see if anyone else had experienced it, one user wrote: “Hey everyone, I noticed that the area around my camera lenses looks slightly lighter/pinkish compared to the surrounding camera housing."

They went on to explained that there was 'no oil, residue, or dirt on the phone', and that they had 'cleaned the area carefully'.

"I’m also not seeing any scratches, dents, or physical damage," they added.

An example of the discolouration shared on Reddit (Reddit)

They also shared an image of the phone, which showed lighter rings around the camera lenses.

“I have the same thing on Burgundy Pro Max,” another person wrote. “Everyone that’s saying you just need to wipe it off is wrong, it does not wipe off. It’s a discoloration on the unit.”

But others had experienced it even more acutely, claiming that their phones were already discoloured when they arrived, which made it clear that this was not the result of not cleaning them or general wear and tear on the device.

“My black iPhone 18 Pro Max came in the exact same way,” one person wrote, while another wrote: “Mine looks exactly the same. It was that way out of the box. I figured I would clean it off when I got home. The stains are not going away, no matter what I’ve done.”

Meanwhile other customers said that they had already sent their back to Apple and had been requesting refunds on the expensive tech, with one posting that theirs was 'horrible' and 'already on its way back to Apple'.

Another example someone shared online (Reddit)

Some models however did not seem to be affected by the pigmentation at all, for example the 'glacier' colour, which is blue, and the silver versions didn't have anyone saying that they had seen the same thing as the burgundy or black ones, for example.

While it's not clear exactly what may have happened here, AppleInsider, which reports on and reviews Apple products, suggested it could be to do with the colouring process when the phones are manufactured.

The iPhone 18 Pro, like the iPhone17, reportedly uses a process called anodisation in which the device is submerged in electrolytic bath in order to create a a porous layer of aluminium oxide, putting the pigment on the device.

However, it is not quite clear what may have led to the discolouration.