IPHONE INTERNATIONAL: APPLE SCHEDULES IPHONE WORKSHOP IN CANADA; O2 SCRAPS LIMITED-UNLIMITED DATA

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Apple and Starbucks iTunes WiFi integration hands-on

Filed under: Portable Audio, Wireless

Remember how Apple and Starbucks announced their partnership to sell music to Apple customers through the eighty ‘Bucks locations per square city block? Well, the rollouts have begun, and as of today iPhone, iPod touch, and iTunes users can roll into just about any Starbucks in Seattle, New York, and now the SF bay area — all in all about 800-900 spots — and see what’s playing over Starbucks radio and download a bunch of Starbucks-programmed music. We got a chance to sit down with Apple and Starbucks folks at a participating location in downtown San Francisco, here’s what we learned:

• Connecting iTunes through Starbucks is eminently simple: connect to the T-Mobile AP. That’s it. It’s all done behind the paywall, so you don’t have to fork out $10 to get online to use the service. (You can also visit apple.com behind the paywall, but not .Mac services.)
• As soon as you connect to the Starbucks T-Mobile AP with your iPhone / iPod touch / desktop machine running iTunes, you’ll see Starbucks music show up in your iTunes Store interface. (Hit the gallery to see how it works.)
• Downloading a track was reasonably fast, but the WiFi kept dropping with both our iPhone and MacBook Pro, leading us to believe there were some issues with the T-Mo hotspot. The download recovered fine through multiple disconnections, but it took us a little over 7 minutes to grab a single 8.5MB iTunes Plus track — so be careful before grabbing an entire album.

More info after the break; check out the gallery for shots of the Starbucks store on a hacked iPhone (of course it works) and from iTunes on a Mac.

• Apple is also now selling iTunes Digital Releases at Starbucks — basically iTunes cards for select albums that let you grab the entire album on iTunes as well as a bunch of bundled extras like music videos and a digital booklet. Prices vary: KT Tunstall’s Digital Release is $15; Eddie Vedder’s is $12 (but with a lot fewer music videos).
• In addition to showing users what song is being played in the store via iTunes, Starbucks has also installed a TV in every location which shows current track information.
• The music piped to each Starbucks is dynamic and is not being broadcast to all other locations; the music (and data) is moved through T-Mobile’s data centers to each wired Starbucks location.
• Apple and the ‘Bucks is also putting on bay area-only promotion this Thursday and Friday: six radio stations will each give away 32 iPod touchs to encourage people to get off their drowsy asses and into a local iTunes-enabled coffee shop.

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Vodafone to have exclusive rights to 3G iPhone in Q1?

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a decent 3G iPhone rumor to kick about. Perhaps it was the collective disappointment of the 2.5G release on Europe which deflated all the mongering. Whatever it was, we all know it’s coming, it’s just a question of when. Well, the gossip coming out of Italy calls for a Q1 release of a UMTS iPhone. Italian site Morse.IT claims to have spoken to high-level sources and “confirms” in no uncertain terms that Vodafone has signed an exclusive deal with Apple. Right, the same company currently suing T-Mobile in Germany for their iPhone exclusivity. The launch the 3G iPhone would occur simultaneously in all countries where the carrier operates but will not be announced until after the holidays (MacWorld?) to avoid impacting sales of the existing iPhone. The timing chides well with other rumors calling for a 3G release before May. Still, a Vodafone iPhone sold in the UK and Germany would seem a violation of those long-term exclusive deals presumably signed with Apple by O2 and T-Mobile, right? Sure, unless of course, those contract were for rights to the “iPhone,” not the “iPhone 3G” you silly lawyers.

[via Unwired View]

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Instructions posted for downgrading iPhone from 1.1.2 to 1.1.1

Filed under: Cellphones

It looks like those having regrets about upgrading their iPhone to the 1.1.2 firmware now have a means of bringing their prized device back to the comforts of 1.1.1, although the process is apparently not without its faults. According to the instructions recently posted on the Hackintosh forums, you’ll first need to snag a copy of the 1.1.1 ipsw firmware file, then you simply follow three relatively easy steps to dial things back to 1.1.1, after which you’ll have to follow a couple of additional steps to re-activate the phone itself. On the downside, it appears that IPSF won’t work on an iPhone downgraded using these measures, although an update to fix that particular problem certainly doesn’t seem to be out of the question. Hit up the read link below for the complete step-by-step details.

[Thanks, Jurgis S]

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New iTunes hints at iPhone disk use and voice memos?

Filed under: Cellphones

If you hadn’t heard, iTunes 7.5 hit today, and while we were all busy yawning at the seemingly insignificant update, MacRumors Forums user “FreeState” was checking out some localized strings and tracked down a few gems. Number 4320.069 asks if you’re “sure you want to manually manage your music on your iPhone?” Yeah, we’re sure. While 4320.073 teases that “Enabling the iPhone for disk use requires manually ejecting the iPhone before each disconnect, even when automatically syncing music.” We can live with those demands. Mr. 4320.075 is a bit more generic, but 4320.082 is the sexiest of the bunch: “The iPhone “^1″ contains new voice memos. Would you like to move these voice memos to your iTunes library?” We’ve been waiting for months for the iPhone to add that no-brainer feature, so here’s hoping that the next iPhone update will be swift and promise-fulfilling.

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