Hundreds of people lined up outside the Mall of Millenia early this morning to be among the first to purchase Apples’s new iPhones.
The iPhone 5S and 5C go on sale in stores at 8 a.m. at Apple retail stores. They went on sale at 3:01 a.m. through Apple's website.
Wireless carriers and other retailers will also be selling the new phones.
This is the first time Apple is releasing two different iPhone models at once. The pricier one, at $199 with a two-year contract, sports a fingerprint sensor, a better camera and a faster processor. The fingerprint sensor alone is worth the $100 more you'll pay over an iPhone 5C. It encourages you to keep phones secure. Instead of typing in a four-digit passcode, you can just tap your finger on the home button most of the time. If there's a match with the finger you scanned in earlier, the phone will unlock. The improved camera, meanwhile, offers better shots in low light, thanks to larger individual pixels and a wider shutter, even though the resolution remains at 8 megapixels.
The 5C model is largely last year's iPhone 5 with a few extras. The most noticeable is the choice of five colors - green, blue, yellow, pink or white. The housing is made of plastic instead of aluminum and glass. The plastic doesn't feel cheap and offers the slippery feel of a shiny ceramic tile. The 5C has a better front-facing camera than the 5, but it has the same A6 processor and the same rear camera lacking the 5S's improvements in low light. The 5C does come with a newer operating system, iOS 7, but older phones including the iPhone 5 can get the upgrade for free. The 5C costs $99. Unless you really want the colors, paying another $100 for the 5S is worth the investment.
The Associated Press contributed to this story