Are you looking to pick up an iPhone 5s or 5c in person on Friday? Good news: Apple and official carrier and retail partners will be opening their doors an hour early.
Apple has confirmed “will be available to customers on Friday, September 20 at 8:00 a.m. local time at Apple retail stores.” And according to iDownloadBlog, corporate and third-party locations for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile will open at 8 a.m. right alongside Apple to start selling Apple’s latest devices.
Not bad, but you might be able to do better. Walmart, for example, has 24 hour stores, and in previous years, Walmart has sold people new iPhones at 12:01 a.m. the day of release. In fact, this happened just last year with the new iPad, so it’s possible they’ll do the same with the iPhone 5s and 5c, too.
One curious exception to all of this is Radioshack, who has no intention of opening its doors early on the iPhone launch day, largely because they don’t anticipate having any iPhone 5s and 5c shipments until the afternoon.
This says a lot to me. Between Apple not taking iPhone 5s preorders and Radioshack saying they’re not expecting to get new iPhone shipments until the afternoon, my guess is that supply is so constrained that most carriers and retailers will be lucky to get a couple of units per store. If you want an iPhone 5s on launch day, your best bet, as always, is to camp outside of an Apple Store.
Image: Instagram
