AT&T and Sprint turned to Twitter on Friday to announce record demand for activations and sales sparked by the launch of the iPhone 4S.
Sprint, which didn’t start carrying iPhones until this month, recorded its best day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family.
“We reached this milestone at approximately noon CT/1pm ET,” Sprint Product Chief Fared Adib said in an announcement. “The response to this device by current and new customers has surpassed our expectations and validates our customers’ desire for a truly unlimited data pricing plan.”
AT&T, on the other hand, touted activation figures and warned customers about potential activation problemsvia a tweet that said, “We are on track to double single day record for activations.This may produce slower activations for some: systems continue at record levels.”
Sprint’s tweet had an entirely different tone: “Thank you Sprint customers! iPhone 4S & iPhone 4 launch bring our best ever day of sales for a device family.”
We’ve reached out to Verizon for comment. We’ll update this story when Verizon responds.
UPDATE: Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney said the company is “pleased” with sales. “Nationwide our stores reported brisk sales and steady customer traffic all day,” she added. “We are looking forward to the weekend.”
BONUS: 25 Essential Apps for Your New iPhone 4S
Here you’ll find social standbys, top music hits, super addicting games, practical utilities and a few up-and-comers.
Music streaming startup Spotify has taken the U.S. by storm with a web and mobile service for on-demand, all-you-can-stream (at a price) access to a replete music catalogue of more than 15 million songs.
The iPhone app provides instant streaming access to all the playlists you've built, playlists you've subscribed to and all of your Facebook friends' playlists. It also features offline listening and lets you search Spotify's entire catalogue by track, album or artist.
Price: Free with a Spotify subscription plan.
Why you need it: Anywhere, everywhere access to a seemingly endless supply of tracks.
Songza is a music streaming service for web and mobile that features top-notch playlists curated around music moods, genres and cultures.
The iPhone application lets you browse and stream playlists, build your own playlist collections, follow the listening activities of friends and search for playlists by song or artist.
Price: Free
Why you need it: For those times when all you want to do is rock out to iconic tracks from the '90s and not worry about building a playlist. Songza will never interrupt music play with an audio advertisement, and there are no caps on music listening.
Turntable, the social music service in which five folks man the DJ booth at any given time, is equally as good on iPhone as it is on the web.
Use the app to pop in on themed rooms, start your own room, build up your DJ music queue, rack up DJ points or vote on the selections of your fellow DJs.
Price: Free
Why you need it: There's nothing else quite like it -- especially on mobile. Sit back and groove to the DJ selections of others or show off your own funky music flavor.
Fight gravity and nightfall with a single finger. Press and hold to help your tiny bird overcome hills and fly high and fast from island to island.
Tiny Wings sounds easy enough, but don't be fooled - this game gets tricky.
Price: $0.99
Why you need it: Likely the most fun you'll ever have with a single button arcade game.
Game studio Zynga has reinvigorated the classic Scrabble board game with a fresh mobile and social twist that makes it more addicting than ever.
Start as many games as you can handle (up to 20 at one time), and play against your friends, Facebook buddies, random opponents or the person right next to you. You can now even start a game via Twitter, and tweet about your victories.
Can a little pig with extreme allergies outsmart hungry monsters and rescue his piglet friends with just his snot?
That's the challenge of Gesudheit!, a super adorable (albeit somewhat gross) game that has you maneuvering a sneezing, runt-sized pig through a 40-level quest.
The intricate iOS game also features lovely hand-drawn artwork, animation and its own musical score.
Price: $2.99
Why you need it: Equal parts fun and frustrating, Gesundheit! will capture the imagination of kids and adults alike.
Put your nerves in check, you've got some zombie-fighting to do.
Plants vs. Zombies, PopCap's award-winning hit on iPhone and iPad, is a strategy game like no other. Your challenge: Use an arsenal of crafty plants to keep the even craftier zombies from entering your home and eating your brains.
Things start simple enough, but pretty soon zombies with super human abilities will begin to attack by land, sea and air. Thank goodness your arsenal of plants gets increasingly deadly with each new level. But, watch out for that final wave of zombies!
Price: $2.99
Why you need it: Spitting peas, chucking corn, shooting fumes and throwing fireballs at sprightly zombies is oddly satisfying.
You know that farm that you've spent hours (if not years) plowing, cultivating and beautifying? Good news. You can keep an ever-present hand and eye on it whenever you're forced to walk away from your desktop computer.
Use the FarmVille for iPhone application or check out the new express version inside the enhanced Facebook for iPhone application.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Because your farm needs your constant attention, obviously.
iTunes Movie Trailers, or "Trailers" for short, is an Apple-made application for watching movie previews in HD.
The just-released app has already become an early hit with iPhone entertainment seekers. It sports a slick interface for viewing popular trailers across a variety of categories and genres, a movie calendar and the ability to look up showtimes at nearby theaters.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Exclusive trailers for upcoming flicks.
IntoNow is an extraordinary iPhone application that can identify millions of television shows just by listening to them. Just click the TV icon and let the app identify what you're watching, down to the exact episode.
You can then participate in episode or show-based discussion threads, and share what you're watching with in-app, Facebook or Twitter friends. IntoNow will also give you one-click access to IMDb data, iTunes rentals and Netflix streaming info.
The idea behind IntoNow is to socialize the television-viewing experience and help you find even more shows and movies you might like.
If the automatic-tagging bit isn't your thing, you might consider GetGlue, an entertainment checkin service that rewards you with stickers and goodies for your media consuming activities.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Remember when Shazam was super fresh? It totally blew your mind -- and really impressed your friends. IntoNow has the same how did they do that? cool factor.
News junkies need Pulse News, an iPhone application that provides a beautiful interface for consuming news from the websites, publishers and social sites you care about most.
Price: Free
Why you need it: It syncs across web and mobile devices for an interruption-free news reading experience.
Forkly, a new Apple-approved iPhone application, helps you tackle the ever-perplexing food dilemma: Where should I go and what should I eat?
The app takes food-sharing to the next level. Taste, rate and share your meals and drinks to find nearby items you might like. The app matches your taste buds against the taste buds of others to make informed recommendations.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Forkly is a super simple, fun way to discover new dishes right around the corner.
Need to get your Starbucks fix but not sure where the closest open store is? Scrap that maps app, leave your wallet at home and just fire up the Starbucks application for iPhone.
The app features a convenient store locator, food and beverage information, and an easy way to send the gift of Starbucks to a friend.
The app's coolest feature by far is mobile pay. Load up your virtual Starbucks card with funds and then scan your personal barcode at the register. Easy-breezy.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Essential for satisfying that afternoon coffee craving.
Find and book flights from your iPhone with Hipmunk Flight Search.
The application features a no-muss, no-fuss grid interface that simplifies the flight comparison process and makes it super easy to zero in on the right flight for you.
Price: Free
Why you need it: It can sort by agony to help you avoid extra long flights with lots of layovers.
A friend's party turned into an unexpected late night bar crawl. Now you need a hotel for the evening. What do you do? Fire up HotelTonight.
The application lets you book last-minute rooms up to 70% off at hip, boutique or basic hotels in your area. You'll see a fresh crop of three deals each day and you can book up until 2 a.m. local time for a same-day stay. Best of all, hotels are competing against each other for your business, so you're guaranteed a great deal.
Price: Free
Why you need it: For when you need a nice hotel -- tonight.
Expensify proves that collecting expenses and putting together expense reports doesn't have to be a painful experience.
Use the iPhone application as your mobile expense tracking assistant anywhere you go. You can manage reports, scan photos of receipts, edit expense details and even submit a report for approval.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Once you snap a photo and scan a receipt, you can stop worrying about misplacing it and chuck it in the recycle bin.
CardMunch, a LinkedIn-owned iPhone application, transcribes business cards via photo scan and then saves contact information to your address book.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Paper business cards don't ever seem to want to die off. At least now you have a way to scan cards to your phone (and then lose them later, if you so choose).
Evernote, the everywhere-you-are note-taking service, works like a second brain.
Capture and save text, audio and photo notes to notebooks to keep yourself organized.
Price: Free
Why you need it: It's like an always-accessible database for your life.
The ultimate iPhone application for the prolific or occasional runner, Nike+ will help you track your runs, solicit motivation from Facebook friends and even compete with friends in games of tag.
Plus, your past 30 runs stay synced to your phone (and the web), and you can now track the elevation and pace of your runs.
Price: $2.99
Why you need it: The application will talk you through mid-run milestones and challenge you to beat your best times.
Skip the trip to the card store at the mall, and design, print and ship greeting cards right from the comfort of your iOS device.
With Cards -- an Apple-made application -- you can add in your own photos, tweak messages to your liking and preview the inside, outside and envelopes of each card you wish to send.
Price: Free
Why you need it: It's the Apple-approved way to send physical postcards or greeting cards with a personal touch.
It's Facebook on your iPhone. Enough said … well almost.
The application just got a major overhaul, which means the entire experience is bigger and better. Even your favorite Facebook games and applications now work inside the application.
Best of all, the application is lightning fast and the navigation has been streamlined into a left-hand menu that mirrors what you see on the web.
Price: Free
Why you need it: 'Cause it's Facebook.
Hobby and professional photographers alike have become enamored with this iPhone-only application that creates gorgeous, stylized photos.
Apply any of Instagram's impressive filter effects in real-time, add a little tilt-shift to play with the focus in your photos, and share your artsy photo creations with your followers, or post them to other social networks.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Instagram + iPhone 4S = photo magic.
Foursquare for iPhone promises to help you explore the world around you.
You can check-in to places to share your location with friends, accrue points, leave tips, unlock specials or earn the mayor title. You can also use the app to keep up with what your friends are doing, build out lists of places you love or want to visit, and find nearby food or coffee spots that your friends approve of.
Plus, Foursquare was just supped-up with "Radar," a new iOS 5 feature that runs in the background and notifies you when you're near places on your Foursquare lists, or when three or more friends are checked in at a venue withinin walking distance.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Foursquare specials could save you a pretty penny at your favorite neighborhood hot spots.
Socialcam provides a nifty way to shoot and share video from your iPhone. You can capture footage as you see it, or preview and add one of seven interesting filter effects to stylize your clips.
SocialCam can save clips to your camera roll or post to Facebook. Also take advantage of the community aspects and follow the clips your Facebook and Twitter friends are sharing.
Price: Free
Why you need it: You've got a super powerful mobile video camera in your pocket now -- you might as well put it to good use.
Twitter for iPhone is the perfect application for power tweeters, and the right place to start if you're new to the information network.
It comes loaded with goodies to help you follow folks, trends and breaking news. If staying on the pulse matters to you, you won't want to leave home without it.
Price: Free
Why you need it: Now that Twitter is deeply integrated into the iOS 5 experience, the application has become the default social network of the Apple community.
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