Gold iPhone 5S backordered online in US, elsewhere

A few minutes after sales began online, customer demand began outstripping supply for Apple's high-end iPhone in the new gold color. Silver and "space gray" fared better.

Apple's iPhone 5S is playing hard to get for those who want the new gold color option.

The initial supply of the phone, which went on sale online just after midnight in the US, slipped to a ship date of 7 to 10 days within 10 minutes, and to October in less than a half-hour. That happened with all three varieties of the phone, with 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB of storage space.

The situation matches what buyers in the UK, France, and Germany experienced. After an initial rush, Apple's online store pushed back gold iPhone 5S ship dates to 7 to 10 days, then to October a few hours later.

Supplies of silver and space gray iPhone 5S devices held up better. At 2:45 a.m. PT, the Apple store still had enough stock for a ship date of less than 3 days. At 1 a.m. in Germany, France, and the UK, those models had ship date of 7 to 10 days. By 2:45 a.m. PT, though, all three colors had slipped to October in the European countries.

Later in the day, the existing stock of silver and gray iPhone 5S models started selling out, too, in the United States. By 4 a.m. PT, ship dates from 7 to 10 days arrived for some 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB models on AT&T and Verizon.

Apple apparently apparently noticed the demand disparity. The company asked suppliers to increase production of gold iPhone 5S components, the Wall Street Journal reported.

iPhone 5C and 5S hit the streets worldwide (pictures)

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Apple is in an unusual situation of launching two new iPhones at once, a first since the company got into the phone business in 2007. The iPhone top-end 5S sports a faster processor, new camera, and two new colors, but the iPhone 5C is less of a departure. For it, Apple effectively repackaged last year's iPhone 5 components into colorful new plastic cases.

Also with the iPhone 5S, Apple's added a new fingerprint scanner that lets users unlock the phone and validate iTunes purchases. Its 64-bit A7 processor is twice as fast as the A6 found in the iPhone 5, Apple said.

Apple's new iPhone 5S, in the "space gray" color.

(Credit: CNET)

The iPhone 5C went on presale last Friday, and Apple appeared to have plenty of stock, with Apple offering release day delivery up until mid-week this week. The iPhone 5S is a different story, with Apple only offering what appears to be a limited amount of stock online.

At least one of Apple's retail partners got off to an earlier start on 5S sales. Best Buy offered the device up about an hour before Apple, leading some shoppers to buy a device early, and in some cases with same-day in-store pickup.

Apple is expected to meet or slightly surpass last year's opening weekend iPhone sales. Separate reports from Piper Jaffray and RBC Capital Markets suggested that Apple is on track to meet and possibly exceed last year's 5 million iPhone 5 weekend sales (which included preorders) with 5 million to 6 million units in early sales. In past years that number has been a good indication of how well the device will do.

To put this year's early sales in perspective, Apple sold out of online stock of the iPhone 5 in less than an hour last year, becoming the strongest opening sales for Apple. This year Apple's launching in two additional countries, including China, which analysts anticipate could increase early sales overall.

Apple is expected to release first weekend sales figures, which also include preorders, on Monday.

Updated at 2:48 a.m. PT and 4:08 a.m. to note that the order ship date in Europe slipped to October for all three colors of the iPhone 5S and to note that backorders for silver and gray phones had arrived in the US.

Clarification at 9:40 am PT: References to "white" iPhone 5S models have been changed to "silver."

How to Use iTunes Radio

If you use Pandora in the past ten years, then you already have a very clear idea of ​​what Apple's iTunes is the radio. This is the first real attempt of the company to integrate streaming radio in his ubiquitous iOS 7 and desktop applications iTunes. How many things Apple does , it is a derivative idea dressed for m

ainstream success . Pandora currently has more than 70 million monthly active users, and Apple wants to eat.

iTunes Radio Prepared to pounce as " arms race" streaming heats

The selected stations
Selected stations - the faster your music on iTunes Radio ticket - take various forms . Apple strongly favoring stations have artists like Drake and the Beatles , but also others, including Diplo setting , Katy Perry and Jared Leto for their own stations "guest DJ" . ( These vary somewhat Leto overloaded following comment a whole , for example, while Diplo not . )

Apple also recruit specialists in different genres to other stations , such as " The LA rock scene : 60 and 70 " "3 of a Kind James Blake, and disclosure Rhye " priest and click the play button Pepsi station EDM . Pulse , and you are with video Beyoncé drink Pepsi presents himself while looking in the mirror , followed by dance music. The stations of the region combined special algorithms and human curation corporate sponsorship in a creamy shake homogenized milk content . Want to order a Frosty ?

individual stations
It is also possible , of course , create their own stations , based on the first song , artist or genre choice. You can spend six songs per hour , although this limits the station -dependent ( jumps on a station does not compared to another count ) . Each station is equipped with a blade that moves between shots , variety and discovery. You can enter your personal stations via Twitter, Facebook , SMS or e -mail and send to close friends with AirDrop . (This could also be called " mixtapes for the lazy " , but we'll leave the Apple marketing . )

As with Pandora and Apple engineering (both using inches / thumbs down icons) , iTunes radio , you can push your playlist with " more like this game " and "never play this song , " under the star icon on the playback display.

history
With the History tab you through each song, which has been applied to your iTunes radio played to see all platforms. You can not read them, but instead you will have the opportunity to listen to the iTunes preview format , the song to your wish list or buy the damn thing outright .

Part of what iTunes Radio potentially lucrative for Apple closer integration with the iTunes Store. Buy the song you are currently experiencing one click on each screen in iTunes ( it 's actually a $ 0.99 / $ 1.29 in the bar Main Reading Add button) , and it is only two clicks the list to add a song to your iTunes Wish List or you take the appropriate iTunes album Leaf. It has never been easier to buy things.

Of course , Apple is making money selling ads . Audio and video ads once every 15 to 60 minutes , or if you are reserved for subscribers at $ 25 a year iTunes Match music service Apple cloud , you get to listen to iTunes without radio advertising.

first Impressions
On iOS devices, including 7 radio iTunes offers clean as you would expect from an Apple product aesthetics. More importantly , iTunes , Pandora bests in terms of volume: Get it While Pandora access to about a million songs iTunes radio listeners somewhere in the tens of millions users, which obviously leads to a greater variety and fewer repetitions . And with hundreds of millions of iTunes users out there, there are exponentially more users (and hear ) the data for Apple works .

But , in essence, the iTunes radio is simply renamed a streaming service of ten years and integrated directly into iTunes. When Pandora clone , it is quite correct, but it has nothing to do Spotify and Rdio are the characteristics of social development . Is it better than the previous radio iTunes integration ? In all cases . Is it popular? Probably . Is it possible to install without any Apple music device capable of the known universe ? Highly unlikely.