• by Steve Smith  @popeyesm, October 10, 2011

All indications suggest that despite a lukewarm press reception to the introduction of the iPhone 4S model last week, consumers are rushing to buy the new model. Apple announced this morning it had booked more than 1 million pre-sell orders in the first 24 hours.

In a statement Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing stated: “We are blown away with the incredible response to the iPhone 4S. The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched.” 

The company says that when the original iPhone 4 launched last year, it had a first day pre-sell record of 600,000 units. Sprint, AT&T and Verizon appeared to sell through their initial allotments with a day of offering the phone for pre-sale.

By Saturday, Apple’s online store was no longer promising delivery on pre-orders for the Oct. 14 release date and instead approximated a one-to-two week delivery time. Apple’s oldest partner in iPhone distribution, AT&T, announced that more than 200,000 pre-orders has been placed through them for the 4S in the first 12 hours of its sale, making it “the most successful iPhone launch we’ve ever had,” the company stated. AT&T also changed its delivery times to more than 3 weeks out.

Unlike previous iPhone launches, the 4S is being offered across all of the top carriers, including Verizon and Sprint. New addition Sprint said it had sold out of the lowest-priced model, but still had upper-level 32GB and 64GB iPhone 4S models available for delivery on the release date.

Verizon’s ordering site was also reporting delivery dates now a week beyond the Oct. 14 release.

With more carriers in the U.S. now selling and running the iPhone, it shouldn’t be hard for Apple to beat its previous initial sales of the iPhone 4. The company said last year it has sold through 1.7 million of that model between the time it was offered for presale and through the first weekend of its retail sale. Initial weekend estimates of iPhone 4S sales were far lower than Apple is claiming today.

A CNNMoney analyst estimated that about 500,000 iPhone 4S units likely were pre-sold this weekend alone. TheNextWeb estimated that initial sales momentum across the three carriers, coupled with a worldwide launch in coming weeks, puts the iPhone 4S “on track to be the fastest selling device ever.” 

Apple is eager to erase early analyst and press disappointment with the iPhone 4S announcement last week. While the internal technology of the 4S is fundamentally new and enhanced from the popular iPhone 4, the absence of a new physical design, a larger screen and the much-rumored “iPhone 5 moniker dampened enthusiasm in the analyst and tech press communities.