According to a New Delhi report, the demand was so high that the Apple reservation page went down once. In forums around China people were begging to buy the gold model." The largest Hong Kong TV station called Phoenix TV reported that "Right after it started, the champagne gold model was sold out."

Favoured by emperors and representing wealth and luxury in Chinese culture, gold has become a badge of the country's newly wealthy. It wasn't clear how many gold phones had been made available to pre-order.

Another told Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily that the gold iPhones could sell for at least HK$8,000 (US $1,000), an HK$2,000 mark-up on the official price.

The report added that "There are also rumours on some mainland Chinese technology websites about the possibility of a new gold-color iPad." Is that just "gold hysteria" running rampant in China or could there be such a twist coming our way in the next few weeks?

The news of the champagne gold iPhone selling out in record time is great, as are the reviews of Apple's Touch ID feature from Mossberg and David Pogue.

Mossberg stated that "It sounds like a gimmick, but it's a real advance, the biggest step ever in biometric authentication for everyday devices."

In context with Touch ID, Pogue stated that "The best part is that it actually works — every single time, in my tests. It's nothing like the balky, infuriating fingerprint-reader efforts of earlier cellphones. It's genuinely awesome; the haters can go jump off a pier." That's the spirit, David.

In fact, we pointed out yesterday that earlier cellphones using a "swipe" type of fingerprint recognition had lower recognition rates than the "area" type of technology that Apple is using in Touch ID.   

All around, the iPhone 5S is getting a huge thumbs up from consumers and critics alike.

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