iPhone inventor Steve Jobs
Apple's Steve Jobs was, arguably, the Thomas Edison of the early digital age. Pictured: Jobs displaying one of his innovations: the iPhone. Reuters

Apple has pre-sold over 1 million iPhone 4S devices despite widespread criticism over having failed to launch an iPhone 5.

The untimely death of Apple founder and Silicon Valley legend Steve Jobs only one day after the iPhone 4S announcement has caused a ripple effect in the tech world. Not only has Samsung delayed the announcement of the iPhone challenger Nexus Prime smartphone, but also Apple seems to have ended up selling hundreds of thousands of iPhone 4S's to people who want something to remember Jobs by.

Dear Apple, please re-release the original macintosh 'steve jobs edition' with original OS, i'd love to have keepsake, tweeted Kevin Rose in response to Jobs' death Oct. 5. This idea, though obviously not iPhone related, could have played out for countless iPhone 4S buyers as they filled out their pre-orders.

Apple now has its most successful device launch ever, even though iPhone 4S doesn't have a radical new design. They announced 1 million sold in the first 24 hours of pre-order availability, surpassing the previous record of 600,000 iPhone 4 sales in 2010. There really is no way to know if people are buying iPhone 4S as a way of remembering Jobs, and iPhone 4S probably won't be the last device Apple puts out that has plenty of Jobs' input. Either way, iPhone 4S looks to be a runaway hit for Apple, again. Once iPhone 4S ships, maybe people will start using them to make digital tributes to the man who invented them.

Tell us in the comments if you plan to make a Steve Jobs tribute of some kind with your new iPhone 4S.