iPhone fans line up around the world again, this time with a golden eye

Ben Stansall / AFP - Getty Images

An employee prepares a display of iPhone 5S's at the Apple store in London.

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

The iPhone gold rush is on.

In what has become a worldwide ritual, people lined up around city blocks in Tokyo, braved the rain in Berlin and stood shoulder-to-shoulder in London on Friday to get their hands on Apple’s latest creation.

This particular frenzy is fed by bling: The iPhone 5S, as this generation is called, is available in a muted gold. Technology analysts warned that supplies of that model would dry up quickly.

That was expected to be especially true in China, where gold symbolizes wealth, happiness, purity and fulfillment. Apple customers there also said they were proud that, for the first time, Chinese could buy the new iPhone on the same day as Americans.

In Beijing, at the biggest Apple Store in Asia, security guards kept a line in order. Egg-throwing broke out at the previous launch.

The new Apple iPhone 5C and 5S are available for purchase today across the country, and as always, devotees are winding around city blocks waiting to be one of the first to own the latest gadget. TODAY's Carson Daly reports.

People were waiting eagerly in the United States, too. People lined up a day ahead at the Apple Store in Miami Beach, and they camped overnight on Boylston Street in Boston — chairs, blankets and coffee at the ready.

In Berlin, Yahor Paplouski, who came all the way from Belarus for the release, was so excited that he couldn’t take the time to shed his sleeping bag. He wore it into the Apple Store, where he picked up two phones.

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, a customer reported that the gold phone sold out long before the gray and silver options.

Apple topics were trending online, but all that Twitters is not gold: #Apple made the list of top talkers in the United States, as did #iOS7, the new operating system for iPhones and iPads, but not the new color.

Besides the gold option, the iPhone 5S is the first to offer touch security: It can recognize fingerprints for people who don’t want to bother entering a four-digit passcode.

This story was originally published on Fri Sep 20, 2013 9:39 AM EDT