The long term success of iPhone 4S was inevitable, but given the supposedly tepid reaction to the handset's unveiling at Apple's Let's Talk iPhone event, news it's already proving more popular than its predecessor will raise eyebrows.

During the first 24 hours or pre-orders, more than 1 million iPhone 4S handsets have been earmarked for purchase by eager consumers.

That's almost double the previous record for first day pre-orders at Apple, set by the iPhone 4 at 600,000 units in all.

Ever upwards

"We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S," said SVP of worldwide product marketing Philip Schiller.

"The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched and we are thrilled that customers love iPhone 4S as much as we do."

iPhone 4S will be available from Friday October 14th 2011, while iOS 5 will be arriving two days earlier on October 12th.

Apple claims the handset offers twice the performance of iPhone, also boasting seven times the graphical power thanks to Apple's A5 chip, already employed in iPad 2.

Such claims were put to the test during the firm's press blitz, with Let's Talk iPhone playing host to a demo of Epic's forthcoming Infinity Blade 2.

[source: Apple]