With demand for Apple's new iPhone 5 outpacing supply, customers who have made preorders online in the past week won't receive their iPhone for up to three weeks after the device is stocked on retail shelves this morning.
Steve Knox, 27, of Altoona said he has purchased a previous iPhone model and likes the product for reasons ranging from how well its music apps function to the way it looks and feels in his hand, so he was excited to preorder the new iPhone.
"I'm excited, but it's killing me because I probably still won't get it for two more weeks. I should have just bought from the store," he said Thursday at the AT&T store in the Logan Valley Mall.
Apple announced Monday that preorders for the iPhone 5 exceeded 2 million in just 24 hours, shattering the previous record of 1 million preorders for the iPhone 4S.
The wait has caused some customers including a group of Penn State Altoona students waited on by Verizon Wireless Store Manager Travis Tierney to consider canceling their preordered iPhones and position themselves to grab one from the store's shelves today.
"The launch of the last two iPhones were pretty crazy, but this is going to be even bigger because it's the first iPhone with a 4G network [allowing 10 times faster Internet function than previous models]," Tierney said.
He expects droves of customers to be waiting for the store, located in the Logan Valley Mall, to open at 8 a.m. today.
The iPhone 5 features include a 4-inch screen - up from 3 inches - as well as an operating system that enables audible turn-by-turn driving directions, improved camera function and the voice-activated Siri app that answers questions from sports scores to weather forecasts.
Mirror Staff Writer Russ O'Reilly is at 946-7435.
