Technology News Blog

Cingular Wireless announces its plan to begin offering subscribers a new mobile phone from Motorola that will incorporate Apple Computer’s iTunes software. The Motorola iTunes phone is being expected to be launched at a promotional event in San Francisco as scheduled on 7 September.

Apple and Motorola are reported to be co-operating on an iTunes-enabled handset in August 2004. The Apple claimed that the device would come very soon. Motorola further confirmed that the iTunes phone it was preparing with Apple would be ready for release by the end of September.

Most wireless operators are looking at music downloads as a lucrative new revenue source and one of the keys to driving up data revenues and exploiting the capabilities of their new 3G networks. However, subscribers are downloading full-length music tracks to mobile phones over their networks from a third-party service out of fear that iTunes could undermine their booming ringtones business.

It is yet to clear that whether the phone will allow for music to be downloaded via wireless services such as 3G or only when the gadget is connected to a computer.

Several mobile phone makers like Nokia and Sony Ericsson have already launched ‘music phones’ which are designed to play back digital music stored either on tiny internal hard drives or on flash memory.

However, the Motorola phone is expected to be the first designed specifically to download music over a wireless network functioning effectively as a wireless iPod digital music player.

Apple and Motorola both announced last summer that they are working on bringing the iTunes music download service on mobile phones.