Beginning in the first half of next year, new Motorola mobile phones will be able to fetch songs from Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store and play stereo-quality music. Using software developed by Apple, consumers will be able to transfer iTunes from their Windows or Macintosh computers via USB or Bluetooth connections. [Forbes]Steve Jobs says this doesn't compete with the iPod -- presumably a major difference would be the iPod's hard drive. And yet,
Memory chips in Motorola's E398 phones, now on sale in Europe, can pack about two hours of music and offer sound quality that rivals portable digital music players. Next year's models are expected to be able to store as much as 9 hours of music. [ibid]It's not an iPod, but it's a fair amount of music.
An article on the Motorola deal in The Register also notes that HP will be shipping its iPod-based players in September.
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