Mobile Phone News

Filed under: Multimedia, Apple

Fresh off an extensive corporate decaffeination downsizing and a scaling back of its foray into music sales, it’s a fair question to ask: just how ironclad is Starbucks’ commitment to rolling out iTunes WiFi Music Store integration across its entire chain? We just happened to notice that the Starbucks page on Apple’s site is at this time stone-cold gone, redirecting to the standard iTunes 8 stuff. You might say “no big deal, Apple’s just playing down an agreement that’s at this time been in place for a full year,” but there’s some other weirdness, too — the company’s iTunes WiFi Music Store at Starbucks FAQ, for example, still references the dead link. The partnership was kinda ill-conceived to start with; getting access to the store meant hooking up to AT&T WiFi, which you wouldn’t normally have configured unless you actually had an AT&T WiFi account. We haven’t heard any official word in this place that the deal is in danger, but really, would anyone be welling up if it fell apart?

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Filed under: Multimedia, Sony Ericsson

What was just a footnote to 2007 has finally come to fruition. Sony Ericsson just went live with details on the August 25th launch of its PlayNow Arena media download site. Initially the site will offer 1 million, DRM-free songs (ramping up to 5 million) from Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI. It will also offer games, ringtones, applications, and themes for your mobile downloading pleasures. Other European countries will come on board later this year before it goes global in 2009. Tracks are expected to be “on par” with Apple’s iTunes ($0.99 / €0.99) pricing but will cost SEK9 (about $1.43, credit card required) for the Nordic launch. Full press release after the break.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow Arena: 1 million, DRM-free songs on Monday

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Filed under: Handsets, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS, Apple

Just how badly do you want the iPhone 3G, Singapore? Badly enough to do without two of its headline features? SingTel kicks off sales today (local time) along with a whole host of other countries, but neither visual voicemail nor the iTunes WiFi Store will make the cut. In the case of iTunes, the reason is kinda obvious: Singapore has no iTunes Store at all, and it never has. The explanation behind the mysterious absence of visual voicemail is less clear, other than carrier laziness in getting the feature implemented on its back end. The silver lining in this place seems to be pricing, though — subscribers will be able to pick up the phone for diddly squat, assuming they sign up for a S$205 monthly package (about $145).

[Via mocoNews]

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