Just when many had been disappointed with the new iPhone 5, and anticipating slower sales for Apple’s latest flagship smartphone, it has gone and proven every doubter wrong. Here’s the summary of how the iPhone 5, like every other iPhone before it, will set the world alight with crazy pre-order numbers and customers camping in to be the first owners of the smartphone.
Sixty minute pre-orders and more after the break!
Late last week, Apple announced the jaw-dropping price for the unlocked iPhone 5. Compared to the earlier published contract prices, buying an unlocked iPhone 5, which costs the same as the unlocked iPhone 4S when it was launched, will cost an eye-watering amount. Prices for the 16GB version will set you back $649, while the 32GB version will cost $749. Finally, the 64GB iPhone 5 is a cool $849. You would think that that would deter many from purchasing it, but you’d be well off the mark.
Last year’s iPhone 4S pre-orders took only 22 hours to be sold out. That by itself is incredibly fast, one that was only bettered by the iPhone 4’s 20 hours. Again, you would imagine that it would take about the same time for the new iPhone 5 pre-orders to be sold out, right?
Wrong. It took sixty minutes. Yes, sixty.
In fact, the pre-orders where so overwhelming, Apple had to delay its first shipment by one week in order to meet the sensational demand for the iPhone 5. Also, the orders were coming in so quickly that Apple’s website (as well as the other US carrier’s websites who were also taking in pre-orders) had all sorts of problems due to the amount of traffic.
So it was only a matter of time before people started questioning just how many iPhone 5s were available for pre-order. And like clockwork, an Apple press release stated that they received over two million pre-orders in the first 24 hours. By some math wizardry, it meant that Apple received more than 23 pre-orders per second when it opened for pre-orders. Reading that last sentence again took the same time for about 100 pre-orders.
That’s just for the pre-orders. On Sunday, almost a week before the day the iPhone 5 hits Apple stores, the queue has begun. It is interesting to note that the first few in line aren’t there to be the first owners of the new phone, though. For instance, the first two are there to promote their new iOS app, while another, a fifteen year-old who looks destined to be some sort of money-making guru in the future, is in line early so that he can sell his spot in the line to the highest bidder.
The new iPhone 5. In some ways, it changes nothing. And that’s not a bad thing at all.
(Source: TechCrunch (1), (2), GSMarena (1), (2))
(Image source: Apple)
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