Apple presold 2 million iPhone 5s in one day
LOS ANGELES – More than 2 million iPhone 5 units were pre-ordered Friday, doubling the record Apple Inc. set last year with the iPhone 4S.
The company revealed the news Monday, saying demand exceeded supply. As a result, many of those who pre-ordered may not see their iPhones until October.
“iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,” Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said in a statement.
Those who were among the first to place pre-orders will get their phones on Friday. That’s the day when it will be available at physical stores, though long lines are expected.
AT&T, one of the phone’s carriers, also announced that the iPhone 5 had helped it set a sales record. The Texas-based company said it sold more units on its first day and over the weekend than ever before.
Long flight delays up sharply in July
NEW YORK – The number of long delays in July involving planes stuck on airport tarmacs was more than the previous eight months combined, the government said Monday.
Twenty-eight planes were stuck on the ground at U.S. airports for more than three hours that month, the height of the summer travel season. Eighteen of those planes were operated by U.S. carriers.
Sixteen of the U.S. flights were going in or out of Chicago O’Hare on July 13, a day of severe thunderstorms. All of the longest delays were on regional carriers that operate smaller jets for larger airlines.
Overall, flights were less on-time in July than they were in both June 2012 and July 2011. United Airlines, which has a base in Chicago, had the worst on-time rate. US Airways had the best on-time rate for a network carrier, but Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines topped the overall list.
Government expands Hyundai air bag probe
DETROIT – U.S. safety regulators have added two model years to an investigation of an air bag problem with Hyundai Elantras that cut a car owner’s ear in half.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it will look into 2011 and 2013 Elantras in addition to those from 2012. The agency also upgraded the probe to an engineering analysis, a step closer to a recall. No cars have been recalled.
The agency started investigating 123,000 2012 Elantras in May. But Monday it said only Korean-built Elantras have the part that caused the problem. About 75,000 were sold in the U.S.
In April, an Elantra owner told investigators a side air bag inflated in a crash and a metal bracket sliced the driver’s ear.
Hyundai says the problem appears to be isolated.