Apple Inc. and Starbucks have brewed up a deal enabling Starbucks customers to wirelessly browse, search for, preview, buy and download music from Apple’s iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. Customers at participating Starbucks stores can download music onto their iPod touch, iPhone, personal or Macintosh computer running iTunes.
The service will debut at more than 600 Starbucks company-operated locations in New York and Seattle on October 2. The Wi-Fi store will continue its national rollout to 350 Starbucks stores in the San Francisco Bay area on November 7; 500 stores in Los Angeles in early February 2008; 300 stores in Chicago in March 2008; and additional markets throughout the U.S. later in 2008.
Starbucks says the deal fits its plan to link coffee consumption to consumers’ lifestyles. “We’re bringing Apple’s leadership in digital music together with not only our retail footprint, but the unique Starbucks experience, to offer customers a world-class digital music experience,” says Starbucks Coffee Co. chairman Howard Schultz. “Introducing this new service is a natural extension of our music strategy which only enhances the retail coffee experience for customers by helping them discover and acquire new music instantly.”
Upon entering a participating Starbucks, the customer’s music device or laptop computer will automatically recognize the iTunes Wi-Fi store using a high-speed Wi-Fi wireless network. There will be no connection fee or hotspot login. Customers will be able to browse, search and preview the iTunes song library.
Apple is No. 15 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
The new service includes a “Now Playing” feature that displays the name of the song playing in the Starbucks store at that moment. The customer can buy and download the songs or albums directly to their device at the same prices as at the regular iTunes Store.
The iTunes wireless store at Starbucks will run on the T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi network.
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