Summary: If you've been dying to get your hands on one of Apple's colorful new iPhones, be near a web browser when the clock strikes midnight (PT) tonight.
During its announcement Tuesday, Apple promised to begin taking pre-orders for the new iPhone 5c on September 13, and sure enough, the floodgates are getting ready to swing open at 12:01am PT (3:01am ET).
The How To Buy link on the iPhone 5c product page currently points to a placeholder page on the Apple online store at http://store.apple.com/us/iphone. And that page is currently occupied by a "We'll be back" placeholder image that animates in numerous languages.
While Apple never provided a precise launch time for iPhone 5c pre-orders, a cue can be taken from its U.S. carrier partners AT&T, Verizon and Sprint who are promoting pre-orders beginning at midnight Pacific Time on Friday morning. AT&T's iPhone page is currently re-directing to a colorful countdown timer (copy: "This is the right place, you're just a little early") confirming a midnight PT launch:
While the new 5c is mostly a re-branded iPhone 5 hardware-wise, the new design, bright colors and iOS 7 are expected to make the new entry-level iPhone a commercial success. I'm staying up to pre-order a white 32GB iPhone 5c (on AT&T) for my wife, who's due for an upgrade to a tired iPhone 4 that's been dropped in the pool one too many times. I'll probably order it directly from Apple as opposed to AT&T, but we'll see how things go.
One minor nit about colors. I typically buy my wife the white iPhone, while I go with black (it makes it early to tell them apart on the kitchen counter), but the iPhone 5c – regardless of what color plastic you choose – has a black bezel on the front. I know that it's nit picky but the black bezel definitely looks strange with the white rear. Apple should have went with white fronts on the iPhone 5c to make the color pop a little more, but I digress...
As for me, I'm sticking it out another week for the iPhone 5s (which goes on sale on September 20) so that I can tinker with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor and take tons of kid pictures with the new camera. I personally don't plan to play much Infinity Blade III, so the 64-bit architecture and A7 processor may be overkill, but I could definitely see the M7 coprocessor replacing all those rubbish plastic bands I used to wear on my wrist. Those things are awful.
So what about you? Are you pre-ordering an iPhone 5c? What color, configuration and carrier? Why aren't you spending the extra $100 on the iPhone 5s?
During its announcement Tuesday, Apple promised to begin taking pre-orders for the new iPhone 5c on September 13, and sure enough, the floodgates are getting ready to swing open at 12:01am PT (3:01am ET).
The How To Buy link on the iPhone 5c product page currently points to a placeholder page on the Apple online store at http://store.apple.com/us/iphone. And that page is currently occupied by a "We'll be back" placeholder image that animates in numerous languages.
One minor nit about colors. I typically buy my wife the white iPhone, while I go with black (it makes it early to tell them apart on the kitchen counter), but the iPhone 5c – regardless of what color plastic you choose – has a black bezel on the front. I know that it's nit picky but the black bezel definitely looks strange with the white rear. Apple should have went with white fronts on the iPhone 5c to make the color pop a little more, but I digress...
So what about you? Are you pre-ordering an iPhone 5c? What color, configuration and carrier? Why aren't you spending the extra $100 on the iPhone 5s?