The iPhone 5 went on sale at 8 a.m. local time throughout the U.S. Friday. And that was just one country where the new phone made its debut--the iPhone 5 also arrived in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, France, Germany, Canada, and the U.K.

In New York, that meant the usual crush of customers outside Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue Store, which was as packed as any previous iPhone launch. Adding to the mass of humanity were dense droves of reporters and vendors surrounding the queued up customers. Still, when the store opened its doors at 8 a.m., the line moved briskly and continuously.

The scene was more subdued at Toronto's Yorkdale Mall, perhaps due to a combination of improved online ordering and the fact that Apple Stores in Canada no longer stock unlocked phones. But you didn't hear any of the 100 or so customers in line complaining about the ligher-than-usual crowds.

That crowd included a number of first-time iPhone shoppers. One Torontonian was making the switch from a BlackBerry to a 16GB iPhone 5, while another person in line was coming back to the iPhone after trying out a Research In Motion phone.

Back at the Fifth Avenue Store, Matthew Wainchus, a student at New York's Pace University, was in line to buy an iPhone 5 on its first day of availability, just as he has for every iPhone release. He was looking forward to LTE support, which will allow the iPhone 5 to connect to faster cellular networks in the U.S.