Apple and Starbucks iTunes WiFi integration hands-on

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.

Gallery: Apple and Starbucks iTunes WiFi integration hands-on

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• 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.

[barista A @ Nov 7th 2007 6:23PM]

I work at a starbucks in CA and we finally got this today. supposidly your suppose to be able to select songs from an online catalog. but I didn't see it today. maybe in the future. we also didn't get a flatscreen TV. :(

[Lonnie Robinson @ Nov 7th 2007 6:39PM]

I downloaded a song on Monday and no drops at all. About 8MB in 3 minutes.

[cubswillwinit @ Nov 7th 2007 6:40PM]

this is pretty good I guess. Nice to have a wi fi store but you don't really need it unless you're on the move a lot or you're a starbucks junkie.

[paragraph @ Nov 7th 2007 6:43PM]

so wait... all this really lets you do is connect to the iTunes store, and listen to streams from bux... really... i'm totally impressed...

I really don't see anything special here, but i guess i'll wait for more info, or some caffinated mac-head to clue me in to why this is better than sex, or just try it out myself when this super high tech stuff comes to Jersey... we're still impressed with 14.4k Dialup here ;)

(seriously, i must be missing something, because i don't see anything special here...)

[IndiaTech @ Nov 7th 2007 6:45PM]

Hey! Which Starbucks in DT?

[Michael @ Nov 7th 2007 6:54PM]

iPhone....on a T-Mo hotspot!!!?

Mah head assplode!!!

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Nov 7th 2007 6:58PM]

This is pretty good. But we don't really need it unles you're at starbucks 24/7. I prefer to stick downloading from PC. Thats also why I didn't update my iphone.

[michael @ Nov 7th 2007 6:58PM]

I guess I must be one of those 'unlucky' ones.

I bought a song, and it took minutes to get downloaded. Around 5-7 for me. I wasn't satisfied.

There's also a few other problems I've been experiencing, and I'm thinking of returning my iPod Touch for something much more stable and not too-new. That's part of the price you pay for being an early adopter.

I'm taking a look at the Zune 2.0. It looks great from what I've seen, and I don't mind ditching my iPod for one.

[nate @ Nov 7th 2007 7:00PM]

since that's much less new right?
oh wait, it hasn't come out yet.

though to be honest i'm liking the looks of it too

[michael @ Nov 7th 2007 7:04PM]

@nate:

Well the iPod Touch is a first for multi touch on a media player device. And there's bound to be tons of problems associated with anything that's latest and new.

Zune 2.0. still has the same kind of hardware, and it's not so different from what's out there, so it sounds stable to me. I think the Zune team has been studying this for months, and it looks like the Zune 2.0. is a solid player from the start.

Well, that's what I think.

[Robert @ Nov 7th 2007 10:51PM]

Since Akamai is involved in the deal, I bet that all those tracks are cached locally. The next person won't have to wait that long to get that track.

[pemrose @ Nov 7th 2007 7:00PM]

I've used this a bunch in NYC for the last 2 weeks. Works great, no drops - easy way to grab some new music when you're bored of your current library.

[Andrew ? @ Nov 7th 2007 7:09PM]

What radio stations are giving them away tomorrow??

[Jason @ Nov 7th 2007 7:36PM]

Having to pay to connect to the hotspot completely ruins this for me. I'd think it was great otherwise.

[iTea @ Nov 7th 2007 8:31PM]

It's free to connect to iTunes on the iPod touch, iPhone and via a laptop.

[spyder91 @ Nov 7th 2007 10:45PM]

"It's all done behind the paywall, so you don't have to fork out $10 to get online to use the service."

[mavkato @ Nov 8th 2007 6:13AM]

Yeah, paying for Wi-Fi at a coffee shop is lame, the others here (Minneapolis-St Paul area) all have free Wi-Fi

[scottbp @ Nov 7th 2007 7:36PM]

Can you buy itunes plus tracks at starbucks? Or is it just DRMed stuff?

[Jonathan-DBOSS @ Nov 7th 2007 8:12PM]

I'd like a coffee latte yuppie barista mocha espresso emo hipster frappuccino joe preppy seattle trendy baristi baristo cafe coffe java mac apple itune free song please.

[christian w-schris @ Nov 7th 2007 8:39PM]

Well, I guess it's time that someone implement IP-over-DNS for the iPhone. A checkbox enabled option would be nice.

[Galley @ Nov 7th 2007 8:44PM]

Sounds nifty, but I don't drink coffee. Make it work in Target's snack bar, and now we're talking!

[matt @ Nov 7th 2007 10:20PM]

i think this was in effect before today. i was in a NYC starbucks on sunday and it should up on my iPhone. the connecting was great on one song but on these three others that were a normal song size, it took a few minutes to get.

[Ryan Block @ Nov 7th 2007 7:47PM]

Yep, they started Oct. 2nd in NY and Seattle, and this week in the bay area, as I mentioned.

[Mike Sax @ Nov 7th 2007 11:26PM]

So once you connect to the T-Mobile AP, does that mean that your email, google maps, and general (non t-mobile/apple.com) browsing no longer works, or are those apps "smart enough" to still use EDGE instead of Wifi?

If it's choice between iTunes or the rest of the Internet, that's a big problem.

[AndrewNeo @ Nov 7th 2007 11:48PM]

The closest Starbucks (standalone, we have one in our Barnes and Noble) around here that would have the service is about 20 miles away. I think it's funny how common they are in almost every other city except mine, and our city is bigger than some I've seen them in.

[Scott @ Nov 8th 2007 12:51AM]

At a lot of the NY 'Bucks when they started that roll out you could get some of the apps (weather, stocks etc) to update without needing to pay for actual access.

[Ben @ Nov 8th 2007 1:42AM]

Anyone else find it ironic that Starbucks is teamed up with T-Mobile and not AT&T?

[Garst @ Nov 8th 2007 2:11AM]

What happens if you're in a Starbuck trying to connect to the T-Mobile AP to browse iTunes and you're also picking up the AP from the Starbucks across the street? Will the iPod crash horribly? Or are all Starbuck syncanizing their playlist so there isn't any conflicts with the "Now Playing" track? Or all Starbuck actually spread far enough apart that this isn't a problem?

[Garst @ Nov 8th 2007 2:13AM]

Also, does the Starbuck AP also work at the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble? Or is this just strickly a T-Mobile thing?

[jbelkin @ Nov 8th 2007 3:17AM]

THe random "I am buying a Zune" comments are hilarious like MS outsourced the blog comment shills to people who learned "proper" English from CD's - They learned that no one believes comments like ...

"BFF, OMG! The Zune is so social Gotsta Get One!"

I suppose the robotic bot reply is a better fake shill ... though real humans, if one download is not 100 MB per second - their first reponsse is not normally, "I will spend $300 or a Zune and $200 to load it with new music because I have heard through reliable sources that the Zune 2.0 is simply the best ..."

Um, yea, okay - yea whatever.

Nice try MS. Keep at it. Eventually, you will sound human.

[mavkato @ Nov 8th 2007 6:12AM]

IDK my BFF Zune?

[Stewart @ Nov 8th 2007 9:47AM]

I tried it on my iPod touch when I was in New York, and it worked great. Although, I doubt many people who read engadget actually pay for their music.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Nov 8th 2007 4:07PM]

I actually fuel my itunes account with unused itunes gift cards I find. You can't believe how many I find where I live. Poor chaps.

[Stewart @ Nov 8th 2007 5:06PM]

Really?? That's awesome. Where do you find them?

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Nov 10th 2007 8:44AM]

On the ground most of the time. Sometimes at gas stations which is strange I know.

[Jim Dalton @ Nov 8th 2007 11:55PM]

@ AndrewNeo

You are right on. I tried this in my local Starbucks. Yeah how cool...you can connect to itunes to buy shit. But now you're connected to the tmoble network. Email doesn't work. Safari doesn't work. None of it works....not without the ten bucks of course.

If you're like me, you have your iphone on auto connect too...so now every time you go into a starbucks your iphone doesn't work unless you go in and manually forget it from your networks.

Worse than useless.

[jiansbond @ Nov 9th 2007 1:18AM]

Can someone tell me why anyone would wait for the extrenuous time needed in Starbucks to download songs.

Personally, I go into Starbucks, get my black coffee and try to get out as fast as I can. Don't think I would linger around to either download or even listen to music. Plus the stores are usually so small and packed in NYC, one can almost never find a seat.

[ryan @ Dec 5th 2007 10:17PM]

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