Apple and its business partners began taking orders on Friday for its iPhone 5C, the lower-end of two smartphone models introduced earlier this week, but not without some hiccups.
Preorders were set to begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday, but Apple's online stores weren't usable until 12:12 a.m. Customers might have had better luck with T-Mobile in Germany and O2 in the United Kingdom, which began presales just after midnight PT.
In the United States, the online stores of AT&T and T-Mobile were taking orders, too, though Sprint and Verizon Wireless still showed only information pages at 12:20 a.m., but by 12:56 a.m., they both had begun selling the new iPhones, too.
With five colors to choose from, as well as 16GB and 32GB models, inventory management becomes more complex in the iPhone 5C era. Sprint said it would ship iPhone 5C models within two weeks -- except for yellow ones, which would ship within three weeks.
