Munich

As online sales for the iPhone 5s begin to go live in Australia, Asia, and now the UK, lines outside of Apple stores around the world are starting to grow in anticipation the September 20th, 8AM retail launch of the iPhone 5s and 5c. Shipping times for the 5c have been slipping since preorders went live last week, but Apple seems to be in even shorter supply of the iPhone 5s as shipping times are starting at 7-10 days in most countries where online orders have already kicked off.

If you’re expecting to queue up to get your hands on an iPhone 5s like the many customers pictured below, you might want to get in line soon. We learned earlier today that retailers, including Apple stores, are getting little to no Gold and white iPhone 5s units, and will mainly have just the new Space Grey model available in store. However, as we’ve seen following launches in other countries today, the 5s in all colors seems to be in shorty supply even for online orders.

@varunkrish People in line at Apple store , Apple reps saying not more than 10 pieces of gold iPhone per store.
That is pretty bad.

— SD (@sonaldeshmukh) September 19, 2013

The September 20 iPhone 5s and 5c retail launch will take place in the US, Australia, China, Canada, Germany, France, Singapore, UK, and Japan.

Head below for a look at the long lines starting to form outside Apple Stores around the globe:
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Our German is more than a little rusty (and so is Google’s) but it appears that five devices that are suspected of being either iPhone 5s or knockoffs were confiscated at the Munster-Osnabruck airport on July 21st.

It still isn’t certain if they were real or fake but it is newsworthy that Germans are confiscating iPhones, real or fake, at the Airports since there are so many fake iPhones coming out of China, India and Sears these days. Maybe they were just Samsung Galaxies?

The men in possession of the devices were coming from Turkey.

It appears that the customs officials are working with Apple to determine the origin of the devices.

Benm.at has the story

Here’s another version of the story.

Update: Reader Till translated the important bits, below:

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