Apple iPhone 5s, 5c Availability: Release Date Arrives In 35 New Countries, But Still No Gold?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) continues its mass rollout of its new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, as the release date for both seventh-generation iPhone models finally arrives in 35 additional countries on Friday, a move that was announced earlier this month.

Friday marks the release date of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand. Prior to today’s release, the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c were only available in the U.S., the UK, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico and Singapore.

The rollout continues next Friday, as Apple will release the iPhone 5s and 5c in 16 more countries on Nov. 1, including Albania, Armenia, Bahrain, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE.

According to Apple, every new iPhone 5s or iPhone 5c customer “will be offered free Personal Setup service, helping them customize their iPhone by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store and more,” which will give customers a chance to get their new iPhone purchases up and running before they leave the store. Apple and its authorized resellers and retailers will also help customers learn more about the release of iOS 7, which is built into every iPhone 5s and 5c.

Regarding availability, Apple will likely have enough iPhone 5c models to sate the global masses, but it’s unknown whether Apple faces the same supply constraints with the iPhone 5s it faced with the phone’s initial release date in September, especially with the rare gold color. Based on sales, Apple is reportedly amping up production of the iPhone 5s while cutting production of the iPhone 5c in time for its continued international rollout. According to Boston-based Localytics, the iPhone 5s is roughly 3.4 times more popular in the U.S. than the iPhone 5c, and roughly 3.7 times more popular internationally. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners also told AllThingsD the iPhone 5s has outsold the iPhone 5c by more than a two-to-one margin since the phones’ Sept. 20 release date, adding the iPhone 5s accounted for 64 percent of new iPhone sales and the iPhone 5c for just 27 percent.

About The iPhone 5C

The new iPhone 5c either replicates or improves upon the features in its predecessor, the iPhone 5, but there are a few noticeable differences. First, Apple has replaced the all-aluminum unibody enclosure of the iPhone 5 with a reinforced polycarbonate solution, and the iPhone 5c will also release in five different colors instead of two (black and white), including blue, green, yellow, pink and white.

Inside the shell of the new iPhone 5c, most of the specs look identical to those in the iPhone 5. Running on the same A6 chip, the iPhone 5c features the same 4-inch Retina display, the same 8-megapixel camera with 2.4 aperture and single-LED flash, and will also run iOS 7 upon its release. Apple has improved a few features in the iPhone 5c, including the front-facing FaceTime camera and the phone's battery, and the iPhone 5c also supports 13 LTE bands, which is more than any other current smartphone (besides its cousin, the iPhone 5s).

About The iPhone 5s

The new iPhone 5s is an impressive improvement over the iPhone 5, even though both phones feature the same form factor. The iPhone 5s features the same 4-inch Retina display and chamfered diamond-cut edges, but the phone also comes with a number of new innards. The iPhone 5s is powered by a new A7 processor -- with CPU performance 40 times faster and GPU performance 56 times faster than the original iPhone -- and Open GL, just like the new Nexus 7. To supplement the A7 chip, the release of the iPhone 5s also comes with Apple's new M7 chip, which contains all the motion-tracking hardware Apple needs to make its iWatch a reality. By packing so many components into the M7 motion co-processor, including an accelerometer, gyroscope and compass, the M7 can continuously measure motion data for the newest generation of health and fitness apps.

The iPhone 5s also features a slightly modified battery for greater life, a new and improved camera system packed with new features and technologies that make for better quality images and videos, and a fingerprint sensor called Touch ID, which lets users authenticate ownership and user passwords by simply holding their thumbs on the iPhone’s signature home button. Apple chose to release the iPhone 5s in three color options -- white with silver, white with gold, and black with space grey -- but for more information on the new iPhone 5s, check out our review and hands-on with the seventh-generation iPhone, and learn more about why it's worth the price to upgrade.

What do you think of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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