Apple has issued an official response to complaints over the iPhone 5's purple flaring, and it mirrors what AppleCare Support said to a customer last week. A new support document has appeared for the symptom: "A purplish or other colored flare, haze, or spot is imaged from out-of-scene bright light sources during still image or video capture."
Remember this photograph tweeted last week by @weaksauce12? It shows the strange purple flaring reported by many iPhone 5 users, which is being called everything from "purple haze", to "the Hendrix effect", to "Purplegate". Fingers were pointed at everything from the phone's new sapphire lens to the infrared filter -- or supposed lack of -- inside.
If you were patently waiting for a fix, you'll be disappointed to know that there doesn't appear to be one on the horizon: Apple is saying that the excessive purple flaring behavior is "normal".