Only relaying this story since it worked incredibly well for me. If you're as impatient as me and can't wait a month for a pre-order to ship, trying to track down an iP5 in a brick and mortar store may be the fate you've resigned yourself to. In my case, I went on vacation on September 13th without a laptop and didn't come back until the 25th, so midnight pre-ordering on the 13th and a Friday morning lineup on the 22nd were out of the question.
When I got back on the 25th, I knew all of the apple stores, carrier outlets and best buys would be sold out of iP5s, but called around to a few radio shacks and targets in the area. A few I called said they were out, but were expecting stock in 3-5 days. Less than an hour into my calling around, I found one nearby that actually had two 16gb iP5s in stock. Went over there the same day and picked them up, less than 12 hours after I got back from vacation.
Moral of the story is, you may have better luck at Radio Shack/Target locations if you're trying to track one down in store, as people don't generally think to go there to buy new on-contract cell-phones. Only caveat, their customer management system is different from the ones the carriers use, and the staff are far less trained. It took me an hour and a half to complete the transaction and I checked my account online compulsively for the next few days to make sure he didn't sign me up for four lines instead of port over two lines from one carrier into new accounts.
Happy hunting!
When I got back on the 25th, I knew all of the apple stores, carrier outlets and best buys would be sold out of iP5s, but called around to a few radio shacks and targets in the area. A few I called said they were out, but were expecting stock in 3-5 days. Less than an hour into my calling around, I found one nearby that actually had two 16gb iP5s in stock. Went over there the same day and picked them up, less than 12 hours after I got back from vacation.
Moral of the story is, you may have better luck at Radio Shack/Target locations if you're trying to track one down in store, as people don't generally think to go there to buy new on-contract cell-phones. Only caveat, their customer management system is different from the ones the carriers use, and the staff are far less trained. It took me an hour and a half to complete the transaction and I checked my account online compulsively for the next few days to make sure he didn't sign me up for four lines instead of port over two lines from one carrier into new accounts.
Happy hunting!