iPhone 5 Goes On Sale In The U.S.

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A happy iPhone 5 customer.
A happy iPhone 5 customer.

The iPhone 5 just went on sale across the East Coast of the United States. As expected, the device has spawned lengthy queues outside of Apple retail stores all over, with more than 700 people in line outside of Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York.

Fortune’s Philip Elmer DeWitt is outside the Fifth Avenue store, and he described the queue there this morning:

We’re here at the big glass cube of Apple’s (AAPL) flagship Fifth Avenue store for the launch of the iPhone 5. The queue of customers isn’t as long as the 1,200 that greeted the iPad 2, but at 7 a.m. — one hour before doors open — I counted 710 heads, 52% more than the 400 at the iPhone 4S launch.

The iPhone 5 is expected to become Apple’s fastest-selling iPhone yet. The Cupertino company saw two million pre-orders for the device during the first 24 hours alone — double that for the iPhone 4S last year — and new online orders are now facing a month-long wait for shipping.

Image: Greg Sandoval/CNET

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