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.

Today, Reuters reports that AT&T is seeing an  ”extraordinary demand” for the new iPhone 4S, which became available for preorder at 12:01 am Pacific time on Friday, October 7th. AT&T reveals that  they have seen over 200,000 preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first 12 hours of sale.  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 today’s number does not.

This number is from AT&T alone. So, if we assume 200,000 pre-orders were taken for each carrier (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint), that turns out to 600,000 pre-orders in 12 hours!!  In addition, Sprint’s website shows that the 16GB iPhone 4S is sold out.

Clearly, nobody wanted to purchase an iPhone 4S.