Industry insider reveals official UAE launch date of the iPhone 5

A top industry insider has revealed the official launch date of the iPhone 5 in the UAE.

Since September 23, the Apple gadget’s only been available here on the highly-inflated ‘grey market’ - phones flown in from abroad.

Yet just a day after retailers expressed fears the handset might not even make it here in time for Christmas - 7DAYS can exclusively divulge the date the iPhone 5’s calling in to the UAE.

“November 20,” our top-level source rang to tell us yesterday on condition of complete anonymity. For phone fans wanting to mark a date in the diary - that’s a week next Tuesday.

According to 7DAYS tech whizz Megha Merani - a self-confessed iPhone aficionado - the popularity of the Apple product has now reached that of “a cult”.

“It doesn’t matter what phone anyone else releases - everything is compared to the iPhone,” Merani said of the phone first launched in 2007.

“Every new release is trying to match or better the iPhone. The iPhone is the benchmark.”

She added: “People will buy it - I will buy it.”

Another person who is definitely buying the iPhone 5 when it officially launches on Tuesday, November 20 is Dubai-based Apple fanatic Asanka Amareskara - and he’s already got one! The Sri Lankan national paid Dhs6,500 to become one of the first people in the UAE to own a ‘grey market’ handset.

He famously took a surgical knife and scissors to his iPhone 4S SIM card in order to fit it into the iPhone 5’s ‘nano SIM’ socket.

“No phone compares to it,” insisted Amareskara, who plans to get an iPhone 5 on both UAE telecom providers Etisalat and du’s networks. Depending on which model bought, the iPhone 5 is expected to retail for about Dhs4,000 when it finally officially launches in the UAE.