Earlier this week, Apple  announced  a brand new version of its iPhone iPhone 4S.    The iPhone 4S features the new A5 processor, a redesigned antenna, an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot 1080p high-definition video, and supports AirPlay mirroring. People were expecting it to be the iPhone 5″ and folks weren’t expecting it to sell well.

Yesterday,  Reuters  reported  that AT&T is seeing an  extraordinary demandfor the new iPhone 4S, which became available for preorder at 12:01 am Pacific time on Friday, October 7th. AT&T revealed that  they have seen over 200,000 preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first 12 hours of sale.

Just 24 hours after pre-orders started for the iPhone 4S, Apple pushed back expected shipping times for the device from expected delivery on October 14th to an estimate of 1-2 weeks.  The Apple Online Store changed its pre-order availability for all models of the iPhone 4S early Saturday. When pre-orders started around 12:01 PST on Friday, server issues delayed sales for Apple and AT&T.

However, Apple’s other two wireless carrier partners in the U.S., Verizon and Sprint, were able to begin pre-orders on time.  Last year, Apple  announced  that they saw a record-breaking 600,000  iPhone 4  pre-orders in the first day  across all carriers  in the US, France, Germany, Japan and the UK. Last year’s 600,000 number included all of Apple’s launch carriers, while yesterday’s did not.    In addition, Sprint’s website shows that the 16GB iPhone 4S is sold out.  Clearly, nobody wanted to purchase an iPhone 4S.

The iPhone 4S will launch next Friday, October 14th in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.