Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) finally delivered on the iPhone 5. And shares had a record-high close yet again this week. When the company unveiled the new iPhone, the promise was that it would be available to ship on Friday, September 21, and that preorders could be made starting on Friday, September 14, 2012. There is just one problem for Joe Consumer now, and that is that the iPhone 5 appears to already be sold out.

A visit to the Apple online store shows that the various models are available to ship in two weeks. In short, that means that you cannot get your iPhone from Apple itself on the release date now. The store does not exactly say “sold out.” What it does say is that both the black and slate or the white and silver options in the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models are all available to ship in two weeks.

When Apple gave the release dates, it said that the iPhone 5 would be available in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom with a launch date of Friday, September 21, and with preorders being accepted Friday, September 14. Apple also said that the iPhone 5 would roll out worldwide to 22 more countries on September 28, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The Apple store makes you pick your carrier as well, obviously. Whether you choose AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) or Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), the Apple store also says that the ship date is “2 weeks” on the site.

After stumbling through the Verizon online order process, the available date is still listed as September 21. Maybe you can get the iPhone 5 through your wireless carrier on the expected ship date, but it doesn’t look like that will be the case through the Apple online store.

Does this mean that the status will be the same in a day or even later today? Not necessarily. Maybe Apple just allows so many sales on its store per hour. Who knows for sure, but as of now you better try getting your iPhone 5 through your carrier rather than through Apple itself.

JON C. OGG

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