Alejandro de Rosa and Melisa Racineti of Buenos Aires, Argentina pose with their new Apple iPhone 5s phones with Apple employee Jay at the Apple Retail Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York September 20, 2013.ADREES LATIF/Reuters
As with the launch of every new iPhone, the lead-up to Friday's launch of the new Apple iPhone 5C and 5S was marked with near-hysteric anticipation, extremely long lines, and, in some cases, disappointed shoppers. Still, this morning did manage to hold a few surprises:
1. Despite the snark when Apple first announced its new iPhone 5S would come in gold, it turns out people want the gold phones. They really, really want them. According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has already asked its suppliers to increase production after the gold iPhone 5S sold out online in minutes.
2. It's only been available for a few hours, but already, the new iPhone 5S is being torn apart to see what's inside. So what's different about the iPhone 5S from the previous iPhone? Not as much as you might think, according to iFixit.
3. People are still willing to stand in really, really long lines to buy new iPhones, with analysts are already predicting that this year's lineups hit a a new record. Take this Winnipeg man, for example, who claims to have paid $1,500 this morning to buy the new gold iPhone off of the first person in line. "What's really funny is the first few people in line were all professional sellers," he tweeted. "Now he's mad as another dude just offered him 3k. 2 late!"
4. In the U.S., some people who didn't want to stand in line themselves paid homeless people to do it for them. Yes, really.
5. In Palo Alto, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly paid a visit this morning to an Apple store to personally greet new iPhone 5S and 5C owners, shaking customers' hands and saying hello.
6. One of the most buzzed-about features of the new iPhone 5S is the new "Touch ID," which replaces the phone's traditional password lock with a fingerprint scanner. But already, experts are already warning about the potential security problems associated with fingerprint scanners. Hackers have even organized a competition to see who can crack the scanner first.
7. Speaking of "Touch ID," turns out the iPhone 5S' fingerprint sensor isn't restricted to human users. Case in point: this video of a cat unlocking the new iPhone with his furry paw.
8. It wasn't all good news for Apple on Friday. Forbes reports that, just a day after the release of the new iOS 7, users have found a potential security bug that allows anyone to bypass the lock screen and access users' private information, including photos and e-mail.
Ann Hui