Apple may have suffered a massive PR fail with its malfunction Maps aplpication but that hasn't stopped the masses queueing up for the release of the iPhone 5. Fanboys in Australia were the first in the world to get their hands on the latest iteration of the 'Jesus Phone' after stores opened at am 8am local time (10pm GMT yesterday).
As the usual lines of fanboys around the globe lined up, a gang of enterprising criminals in Japan found the wait too much to bear, broke into a number of mobile phone shops, stealing roughly 190 handsets hours before the device went on sale this morning, police said.
The iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest in the range of game-changing smartphones to date, with a 4" screen, retina display and A6 processor. While not exactly on a par with Samsung's technically superior Galaxy S III, it does enjoy a healthy fanbase. Apple sold 20 million iPhones in the last quarter alone and retains a 17% market share in the smartphone space but remains a distant second in the mobile operating system stakes to Google's Android, which holds a 68% share across over 200 handsets.
To what extent the foul-up over the ditching of Google Maps in favour of a substandard alternative will affect sales remains to be seen.
The iPhone 5 will be released on 28 September on O2, Vodafone and Three.
TechCentral Reporters