The iPhone 5 hiccuped onto the market today, taking down several online stores and quickly selling out the first supply of Apple's new smartphone.
Initial stock from Apple for release day delivery sold out in less than an hour. Those looking to purchase the phone just after 1 a.m. PT discovered new orders from Apple's online site had estimated shipping times of "2 weeks" instead of the original "delivers by" September 21 message.
How far back can Apple push it? In the case of the iPhone 4S last year, Apple extended delivery of new orders out to three to four weeks after the launch. Some buyers ended up canceling online orders and waiting in line at retail stores instead.
In the United States, early buyers today found both Apple's and AT&T's online stores down for maintenance. Savvy users discovered that orders could still be placed through Apple's iOS app, where buying options went live immediately after midnight. At the carriers, meanwhile, Verizon's site appeared to be fully functional, unlike Sprint's, which spent its first half-hour at a crawl when trying to view the ordering page.
The U.K. carrier 3 had difficulties fulfilling iPhone 5 demand.(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET )
"It's coming. We're excited and readying the store for your orders. Check back soon to place your pre-order," Sprint's store page read.
Sprint's site recovered by about 1:30 a.m. PT., and AT&T's was working by 1:50 a.m. PT.
Apple's online stores in the U.K., Germany, and France responded smoothly to preorder requests. Curiously, Apple's online store in the United States worked smoothly from France for a time but wasn't available from California in CNET's initial attempts to get through.
Actually completing the order can be another matter: When blogger Danny Sullivan tried to place his preorder through the Apple store for a phone on AT&T's network, Apple's site told him, "We have an iPhone for you. We're currently unable to reach the carrier systems to process your order, but will reserve an iPhone for you." It offered a reservation confirmation and promised to e-mail him when he could proceed with his order.
In Germany, servers at Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile division were sluggish to respond, but a preorder page was available. Trying to place an order, though, was a different matter: the Web page wouldn't load.
"A communication error occurred," the T-Mobile Germany site said. "The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time."
In the U.K., Orange's online store went offline. T-Mobile UK (the other half of the Everything Everywhere partnership that will have the LTE advantage in the U.K.) offered an iPhone 5 preorder button, but on its online store, the iPhone 5 wasn't initially available. The carrier began offering iPhone 5 preorders not long into the day, though, starting at about 1 a.m. PT (or 9 a.m. local time). Vodafone in the U.K. accepted preorders but its online store was extremely slow. And 3 UK offered preorders but was unable to fulfill them at 2:30 a.m. PT.
The buying frenzy brings a potential problem for Apple: the supply of accessories to support its new Lightning dock and cable connector has been pushed to next month, potentially weeks after buyers get the first devices that uses it. That includes the $29 30-pin-to-Lightning dock adapter, which lets users connect the iPhone 5, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch to the now outdated 30-pin cables found in all previous iPods and iPhones. New orders for the adapter ship in October, while the Lightning-to-USB cable, which also is included with the iPhone 5, currently shows a shipping wait of two to three weeks.
The sixth-generation iPhone, unveiled this week, is thinner, longer, lighter, and comes with a faster processor and faster LTE wireless networking. And it comes with greater sales ambitions: Apple is releasing it for sales in more countries sooner. Some analysts expect that faster opening of sales will mean more revenue for Apple in the fourth quarter of 2012.
But keeping up with demand for the tremendously popular product is tough.
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