UPDATE: Want an iPhone 5? Get in Line

Fans of Apple's iPhone lined up at the Apple Store this morning at Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines to be among the first to buy the new iPhone 5.

Joel McCartan of West Des Moines was one of them. He was planned to buy four iPhones so the whole family could have one. The devices are early birthday presents for his children, ages 14 and 15, who have birthdays in September and October. No need for a spoiler alert; the kids know what they're getting.

McCartan isn't sure why the iPhone is such a must-have, but he's a smart enough dad not to question. He was trading up from a Samsung, but likes the capabilities of an iPhone. He had one, he said, but lost it in the ocean.

Another soon-to-be iPhone 5 owner was David Tressel of Marion, whose wife, a financial executive, was attending a meeting in West Des Moines. He took his place in line.

The phone is for his wife, the techie in the family, Tressel said. He's a current iPhone 4 owner and she has an iPhone 4S, which Tressel said he will inherit. His wife also has three iPads. 

"It's how she keeps in touch," he said.

At 8 a.m. local time across the U.S., according to CNN, thousands who spent hours waiting in line were greeted with cheers as Apple stores and other retailers began selling the new phone. More than 800 people were already in line outside the flagship glass-cube Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City by the time the store opened Friday morning. Dozens of people there had been line since Monday.

Initial demand for the phone, at least in the U.S., appears to be stronger than for previous models, CNN says. One analyst estimated that based on counts at Apple Stores in New York, Boston and Minneapolis, the lines Friday were, on average, 83 percent longer than those for the iPhone 4S last October.

Announced September 12, the iPhone 5 features a bigger screen, lighter and slimmer frame, faster processor and, for the first time, 4G LTE wireless connections.

If a handful of tech writers were unimpressed with the specs, that didn't translate into lack of consumer interest. CNN says Apple took 2 million pre-orders for the phone in the first 24 hours they were available last week, and some analysts said they think it could sell more than 10 million by Monday.

That first-day total was double the number of iPhone 4S pre-orders the company took last year, and an initial Friday shipping date was quickly pushed back, according to CNN. People who pre-order the phone now, or did so in the past few days, could be waiting more than three weeks for their phones to ship.

The iPhone 5 is 18 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than the current version, the iPhone 4S. It has a 4-inch screen, measured diagonally, compared with a 3.5-inch screen on previous versions of the phone. It is the same width as the iPhone 4S but taller, and the iPhone 5 is made entirely of glass and aluminum.