Today saw the first global sales of the iPhone 5S and 5C begin at 8am on Australia's eastern coast, with fans queuing up from midday yesterday in Sydney.
Thanks to the International Date Line, Jimmy Gunawan and Chris Maloney became two of the first people in the world to pick up the iPhone 5S.
At Sydney's Apple Store on George Street, Jimmy Gunawan told TechRadar he had been waiting in line since midday September 19 to upgrade his iPhone 5.
"[I've been waiting] for nearly 20 hours," he said, adding that he was hoping to get the 32GB 5S as the 16GB was too small and 64GB too big.
Across the road, at Telstra's store, Chris Maloney told TechRadar he had been lining up for the iPhone ever since the release of the iPhone 3.
"I've been lining up since 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon… I'm pretty excited right now," Maloney said.
iHype over iPhone
Though Telstra's line didn't quite stretch as far as the Apple Store's – which wrapped down the side of the block, and then down again some metres – Telstra had a bit more fanfare for their customers, with a DJ, goodies, food and blankets passed around to queuers.
When asked about the hype across the globe surrounding the launch, Telstra's Director of Device Management Andrew Volard explained that for new iPhone launches, there's always a level of anticipation.
"I think that the iPhone launch is seen as 'what's coming out next', 'what are they up to next', 'what are they coming up with next'," he said
"And they have such an enormous fanbase and so many customers that everybody just wants to see. I think it's really great."
AFL and NFL stars Adam Goodes and Robbie Farah were there to present Telstra's first iPhone 5S to Maloney.
Optus also organised activities for the launch as well, offering queuers giveaways, goodies and other "comforts" in six keys stores in Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, South Australia and Perth.
Selling fast!
While the Apple Store queue slowly shortens, Aussie carriers have already started running out of iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C stock (at the time of writing).
Optus is already out of stock of all 16GB 5S models, as well as 32GB and 64GB gold and black models. It does still have both 32GB and 16GB 5C models available in all colours except for yellow.
Telstra only has the black iPhone 5S models available across all 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants, as well as all variants of the 5C.
Virgin mobile has not listed any of the models as out of stock, but Vodafone is listing the 16GB 5S silver and gold models, 32GB grey and silver models, and grey and silver models as having a 2+ weeks wait.
Vodafone has also listed just the 32GB yellow 5C as having a 1+ week wait. The Apple store has the 5S gold model in any variant not available until October.
