From London to New York and to Sydney, fans have camped outside Apple stores as the iPhone 5 went on sale around the world today.
As Apple opened the doors of its stores around the world, staff greeted the first customers with high fives and cheers.
The dozens of die-hard Apple fans had swollen into huge queues of hundreds by the early hours of Friday morning, as excitement reached fever pitch hours before the release of the updated handset.
From London to New York and to Sydney, fans have camped outside Apple stores as the iPhone 5 went on sale around the world
The latest Apple gadget became available from 8:00 a.m., as hundreds were cheered into the brand’s store in Covent Garden, central London.
Apple store workers dressed in blue T-shirts formed a passageway and high-fived customers who had been waiting outside the shop for up to a week.
The phone is already guaranteed to be a best-seller, with the company reporting pre-orders around the world of two million in just 24 hours and many customers not expected to receive theirs until October.
IT businessman Ryan Williams was the first person in the queue and said the atmosphere as he picked up the phone was “crazy”.
Ryan Williams, 22, from Swanley in Kent, had been camping out in Covent Garden for a week with his friend Peter King.
The frontrunners for the gadget had been queuing for days and despite a cold snap last night, said the enjoyed sitting with their mates knowing they are going to make “more than a weeks wages” for their troubles.
In the UK the iPhone 5 went on sale at 8:00 a.m. for between £529 ($830) and £699 ($1,100).
Richard Wheatcroft, 30, owner of crowdfuelledcauses.com, said when they get the phones, they will probably sell them on eBay if they cannot get an offer on their spaces.
While industry experts have suggested that android phones like the Samsung S3 now match the iPhone, Apple fans in the queue at 1:00 a.m. on Friday morning still had faith in the iconic product.
Apple fans are looking forwards with keen anticipation to the expected launch of the iPhone 5 tonight.
But it is possible Apple might surprise us “one last thing” by the end of tonight’s presentation – an iPad Mini, a shrunken-down, pocket-friendly of the iconic tablet which ushered in the post-PC era.
Now, a leak from Chinese website shows us the potential size of Apple’s new range and – even if all we are looking at is cases – is the first image to show us how an enthusiast’s collection will stack up.
If the Apple Mini does not arrive tonight, a number of leaks and images of prototypes imply the device will be on shelves before Christmas.
Leaked images claim to show how the new iPhone, iPad Mini, and iPad stack up against each other
These images appeared on a Chinese supplier’s website, before being spotted by French website nowhereelse.fr.
Nowhereelse said the images conform to previous leaks about the iPad Mini, and their own mocked-up iPad Mini, based on specifications revealed over the last few months, matched these covers “perfectly”.
The blog website added: “In addition, the location of the holes cut into multiple accessory supposedly designed to protect the iPad Mini correspond perfectly with the positioning of components.”
The Apple Mini is believed to sport an eight-inch screen, making it a shrunken version of the iPad’s ten-inches.
This will allow a higher degree of portability over previous models, and also give Apple the ammunition to compete with Google, which recently brought out a seven-inch range of Nexus tablets.
It is also believed to be a 3G-capable model, meaning you can use data on the go.
While Steve Jobs was famously against smaller iPads, the success of the Nexus and Amazon’s Fire of budget tablets appears to have convinced Apple there is a market for the slim-line device.
Rumors from Apple suppliers suggest the innards of the Mini will be equivalent to an iPad 2, which analysts suggest will be more than enough to power the shrunken device.
The third iPad had a specification increase but also increased slightly in weight due to the demands of the high-definition Retina display.
