Gold iPhone 5S won't ship until October
Can't wait to get your hands on the new gold iPhone 5S? Well, too bad -- you're going to have to. The phone went on sale online just after midnight. Within 10 minutes, the ship date slipped to seven to 10 business days. By 12:30 a.m. EDT, the projected shipping dates were already backlogged into October.
The Apple store online now says the silver and space gray models will ship in seven to 10 business days in the U.S., but all online retailers and all carriers have pushed back the shipping date for the gold model. The Apple site doesn't give a date, it just says October. The AT&T site promises it will ship in seven to 28 days. In Europe, shipments of all three colors were pushed into October by midday.
Waiting in line at an Apple store in person didn't raise anyone's chances of nabbing a gold iPhone, as a group of die-hard customers learned Friday morning.
Brian Ceballo, 19, was first in line at Apple's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York, reports CNET. Friday morning, he was one of the lucky few to get the 64GB gold iPhone as the doors opened at 8 a.m. But by the time Ilya Olkhovskiy, who was 30th in line, reached the front, the gold iPhones were sold out. The 22-year-old had waited for more than 20 hours.
The gold iPhone craze comes as no surprise. This is the first time Apple has offered the device in a color other than black or white. It's also the first time the company is simultaneously releasing two new iPhone models.
The second model, the iPhone 5C, has a plastic shell and comes in a variety of bright colors, and was available for presale. It sells for $99 for a 16GB model, or $199 for 32GB, both with a two-year contract.
The 5S, which was not offered for presale, sells for $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, or $399 for 64GB if buying with a contract.
At least one of the hundreds of people waiting in line wasn't disappointed to hear he he'd have to go with a color other than gold.
"I...considered getting gold because it's the flashiest," Alex Levy, a 27-year-old law student, told CNET. "But they're out of it, and the flashiness will wear off and you're stuck with a gold phone."
