With product innovation lagging, Silicon Valley bets on a fresh coat of paint

Key Facts

Apple’s new iPhone 14 lineup comes in Starlight (a champagne color) and midnight (black), and the company has previously unveiled two shades of green (“green” and “alpine green”) and purple (“purple” and “deep purple”).
At a time when many of the biggest upgrades to smartphones and other gadgets are under the hood, drumming up consumer interest with a fresh coat of paint may be easier in some ways than getting people excited about faster processors.
But just as basic black, white, gray and silver are the top colors in the automobile industry, these colors tend to resonate most with smartphone owners, according to Peggy Van Allen, a color anthropologist for the Color Marketing Group.
But for all the varied colors out there, it’s important to remember customers still overwhelmingly keep their phones in a case, essentially covering up the color that once helped entice them to upgrade.