Apple and Starbucks brought theirwireless music partnershipto more than 350 Starbucks location in the San Francisco Bay Area Wednesday , a calendar month after debut in 600 stores in New York and Seattle . This partnership hold out the reach of the iTunes Wi - Fi Music Store — available to iPhone and iPod touch users — into many of the Wi - Fi - enabled Starbucks position , providing gratis Wi - Fi access to anyone with an iPhone , iPod touch , or Mac or microcomputer laptop specifically for connecting to the Wi - Fi Store . ( You ’ll still have to pay to touch base to the eternal rest of the Web with one of the T - Mobile HotSpots in the stores . )
The other part of the equivalence , of path , is that when in one of these Starbucks locations , you ’ll see a Modern Starbucks button after tapping on the iTunes button on your iPhone oriPod touch(or a Starbucks section in the iTunes Store if you ’re using a laptop ) . From there , you may see the call that ’s currently playing in the memory , as well as the late 10 tracks that waft through the mochaccino - scented air before that . you could then preview and buy those songs ( as long as your fingerbreadth is steady enough after a double dig of espresso ) .
Wednesday morning , Apple invited me to the Starbucks at Third and Market streets in San Francisco — yes , there ’s only one Starbuckson that nook — for a demonstration , so I went to try it myself . As I spoke with representative from Apple and Starbucks , I pulled out my iPhone , tap on iTunes , and sure enough a Starbucks release appeared . I was able to see that the Now Playing song was the same one come out of the verbaliser and displayed on the plane panel monitoring equipment in the back of the store . There were also a few other Starbucks - specific playlists ( many are change weekly , according to Apple ’s Eddie Cue ) and I had access to the whole iTunes Wi - Fi Music Store , not just a subsection .
After my noodling , the thing I walked away with ( other than a sample distribution of one of Starbucks ’ affectionate holiday drinks ) was the recognition that the two companies must have put a lot of work on the back - end into make the experience seem so simple — it really did “ just work . ”
Neither Apple nor Starbucks representatives would talk sales issue , but they did substantiate that Apple can see which Wi - Fi purchases are made inside a Starbucks , and both have been happy with how things have gone so far .
So which Starbucks are next on the agenda for the Wi - Fi Store expansion ? The two ship’s company plan to the respite of 2007 off , waiting until February and March 2008 to bring the partnership to Los Angeles and Chicago , severally . With impulse medicine bribe this soft , I ’m beaming I ’m not much of a coffee rooter .
