This led to speculation that Apple wouldn't bother including a charger in the box and, in a section of this morning's event dedicated to reducing environmental impacts, the fears were realised.
In fact the four new models will no longer come with headphones or a charger adaptor when you buy them.
Apple is now copping a roasting over the omissions from many on social media who see the environmental reasoning as an "excuse" to cut costs.
Many Apple fans had also been hoping for a USB-C port on the new phone — the industry-standard connector that is being used by pretty much every other major tech company in the world.
But their hopes were dashed this morning when Apple announced it would be continuing with its Lightning charging port.
It confirmed the new iPhone 12 models will include a new Lightning to USB-C cable instead of the classic Lightning to USB-A cable.
The new cable replaces the USB wall charger which used to come with the phones, so you'll need to charge your phone by plugging it into another USB-C power adaptor or computer port.
Apple claims it is ditching the boxed headphones and charger for environmental reasons — saying customers around the world already have a combined total of 700 million headphones and that many customers have moved to wireless.
It says two billion of its power adaptors are out there in addition to billions more third party ones.
"We are removing these items from the iPhone box, which reduces carbon emissions and avoids the mining and use of precious materials," a spokeswoman for the company said.
"Removing these also means a smaller, lighter iPhone box. We can fit up to 70 per cent more products on a shipping pallet — reducing carbon emissions in our global logistics chain."
Apple believes these changes will cut more than two million metric tons of carbon emissions annually, equivalent to removing nearly 450,000 cars from the road per year.
