While a consortium led by Fairfax Financial is going through the terms of a buyout that would save BlackBerry from its dismal existence, rival Apple is having trouble keeping supply up to demand for its new iPhone 5S, and less so for its 5C.
The initial batch of the new pricey gold coloured iPhone 5S, which went on sale online after midnight on Friday, saw its ship dates jump from 7 to 10 days to October in less than a half-hour.
The same situation occured to buyers in the UK, France and Germany.
However, there is a bright spot in all this: It appears that people who like to spend loads of money on hand-held devices, also like it to appear swag-ish … and gold is totally swag. In other words, the other colours of the new phone – white and gray – fared better with sales – but only relatively. For example, at 2:45 a.m. PT, the Apple store still had enough stock of the white and gray iPhone 5S devices to ship in less than 3 days. At 1 a.m. iN Germany, France and the UK, those models had ship dates of seven to 10 days, but slid back to October by 2:45 a.m.
It was also the first time Apple launched two new iPhones at one time since it entered the phone business in 2007, with the other cheaper alternative being the iPhone 5C.
The iPhone 5S boasts a new fingerprint scanner that lets users unlock the phone and validate iTunes purchases … that has been hacked already.
The iPhone 5S and 5C are available in 16, 32 and 64 GB configurations.
Apple announced on Monday that it sold a mind-numbing 9 million iPhones (total figures include both phones) over the weekend. 9 MILLION. This figured crushed expectations by analysts, who figured a paltry sum of 5 million at the low end and 7.75 million at the high end would satisfy consumers.
Those numbers, by the way, are record-setting.
The 5S is available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB, and $399 for the 64GB. The 5C is avilable in blue, green, pink, yellow and white and is avialable in the US for $99 for the 16GB and $199 for the 32GB.
