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iTunes November announcement: The likely and long-shot possibilities
Is it all about iTunes? Big stuff is going down tomorrow, as you know if you've happened upon Apple's front page today. Our TUAW back-channels are all aflutter as we are brainstorming as a group to figure out Apple's big tease. We've been searching the web, scanning HTML source, scanning the iTunes application bundle and more all to try to second-guess what might be happening. No, we don't have any firm answers, but here are some of the things that we think might be included in tomorrow's developments. We'll run down our thoughts and discoveries to date, which we will be updating and amending as new facts come to light. So take these thoughts for what they are -- guesses and observations. We're not certain about any of it, and we're happy to be corrected or pointed towards more or better facts. Feel free to jump in in the comments -- we're dying to hear what you think as well.
Albert.apple.com goes live
For years, Phobos and Deimos, fear and loathing, the twin moons of Mars have provided the primary web objects interface between iTunes and Apple. Apple's published storeBag and secureBag protocols provide the details showing the URL vocabulary you can use to communicate with these servers. Today, albert.apple.com finally came to life. Via secureBag, it provides the secure activation interface for your sparkling new iPhone. And even if you don't actually own an iPhone, the web-objects-based interface makes it easy to chat up Albert, as it were. As of today, simply launch iTunes, and paste this linked URL into Safari and you will be presented with the following message (assuming you do not actually have an iPhone attached to your computer): "There is no SIM card installed in the iPhone you are attempting to activate. Please disconnect and insert a SIM card in the iPhone. Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policies | Terms & Conditions". Sure, it's not the same as having your own shiny new iPhone to play with, but isn't it nice to be able to talk directly to Albert?
iPhone references in updated iTunes Protocol
Evan DiBiase has done a bit more detective work after having found YouTube strings in Apple's iTunes protocol. Now he's uncovered references to the iPhone in Apple's secureBag, specifically references to an iPhone Registration page. Unfortunately the page, which uses secure https, doesn't seem to work as yet. And the other references in storeBag and secureBag produce unhelpful responses such as the one shown here. Just for the sake of completion, I also searched through the strings in iTunes 7.2 but found nothing new to report.
