The day before Apple announced the iPhone 5 we took a moment to look at the rumors surrounding the phone’s pre-orders. Apple hasn’t been entirely consistent with how pre-orders open, relative to when the announcement of a new device is made, and we talked about a few of the possibilities. Yesterday, with the iPhone 5 finally becoming official, Apple announced that pre-orders for the handset would indeed begin this Friday. How, exactly, will that opportunity arrive?

Apple has now confirmed that you’ll be able to get your pre-order in right after midnight, Pacific time. That’s 12:01 AM, to be precise, or just a little after 3 for those of us on the east coast. At least Sprint and Verizon will also start directly accepting iPhone 5 pre-orders right around the same time, but AT&T has yet to say exactly when it will follow suit.

The 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB iPhone 5 will sell for just about $200, $300, and $400 on-contract, respectively. Shipments will go out on September 21, the same day that brick-and-mortar retail sales of the phone begin.

Source: Apple
Via: Wired