The iPhone 5 went on sale today at 12:01 am and to no one’s surprise the phone sold out in an hour. The only problem was the unexpected (or expected) traffic Apple received on its site.
The first problem was a traffic jam at Apple’s online store. At 12:01 the store’s servers were apparently so overwhelmed with would-be customers that many early risers (including this one) who tried to order online were greeted with the dreaded multilingual “We’ll be back” sign — a message that one frustrated user tweeted was like being told “screw you” in 10 different languages.
Word quickly spread on Twitter that the iPhone’s Apple Store app was successfully taking iPhone 5 orders. That was true — to a degree. The app took my order, but it kept timing out at the sign-in stage. After entering and re-entering my password for nearly 10 minutes, I finally got through at 3:25 a.m. My iPhone 5 is scheduled to be delivered next Friday.
Others were not so lucky. Less than an hour after orders were scheduled to begin, the Apple Store had run out of pre-order stock. Orders placed now are scheduled to ship in two weeks
