Whatever happened to the agreement between the Zune and Starbucks? They were supposed to have recharging and song purchasing stations inside. Funny how it quietly lost it's steam.

So, Wilson, are you also "a friend to the woman of shame"?

Anything by Bod Dylan and/or Mark Knopfler is a hit to me.

I think the fact that the primary purpose of the wifi in the iPod Touch is to purchase songs through Starbucks is ultimately going to damage both Apple and Starbucks. This scheme is doomed to failure.

So they are actually going to give you something besides coffee for that for that outrageous price you pay.

@weatherman:
I think the primary purpose of wifi on the Touch is to purchase songs through iTunes. I hardly think that this agreement is going to be a big driver for either. Apples money comes from hardware and most recently, cell-phone contracts.

I wonder how T-Mobile feels about "their" wi-fi network being used to purchase music via a phone that they have been shut out from selling themselves for their mobile network (in the US at least)?

I think this says that Starbucks is loosing business to Mc Donalds and Dunken Donuts. No other reason they would give away soo much. Sell your Starbucks stock and buy AAPL. This could have gone the other way with Apple giving away the music.

If I was a music artist, I'd be wanting to find out how much it costs to get named "Free Song Of The Day".

If it's anything like their weekly free songs on iTunes... Forget it.

I still think I'd rather pay $1.25 for my coffee and spend $0.99 for the song of my choice than pay $3.00 for my coffee and have the song chosen for me.

@weatherman: How is it going to 'damage' them? Free stuff is free stuff.

Not sure if you've used the Store on the Touch (sounds like you haven't), but it's phenomenal (even though I don't buy DRM'd stuff from any store). The integration is way beyond anything I've seen on any mobile device, and, if history is any indication, is no doubt much more seamless/slick than what we'll see with the Zune2 or any other purported 'iPod killer.'

That said - Starbucks' coffee is horrible.

bummer that as of at least now iPhone users will not be able to partake in this offer. Unless Apple gets off their a$$ and gets us our update!

And WEATHERMAN you've got your facts a little off. The purpose of the WiFi iTunes store is to access the iTunes music store wirelessly with the iPod Touch and eventually the iPhone. All Starbucks is offering is free use of their wifi service. You don't HAVE to be in a Starbucks to access the wireless music store.

Ahh, Starbuck and iTunes. Two wildly popular entities that are not nearly as good as their legions of devotees seem to think they are. Throw American Idol into the mix and you have a perfect trifecta.

@bitfactory:

"Penomenal"? Really?

hate the coffee love the itunes. for every starbucks there is in philly there is a non-chain coffee shop that blows it away. Then again, real men brew there own and buy their own disposable cups. Or just walk to Wawa and get some halfway decent coffee for $1.27.

Starbucks does sell some nice cakes. They don't seem to mind when I walk in with coffee (superior coffee) that I purchased from a street vendor, so long as I buy something at least. People seem to be reaching calling this a bad thing. How exactly, is all a big mystery, ain't it?

@92BuickLeSabre: Dude, you can pay even less:

I bring my coffee from home in a Thermos (it knows to keep the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold) and get my music from a bay that shall remain otherwise unnamed.

@Obee Juan:

You still have to sign up and use T-Mobile's hotspot to use the wi-fi at Starbucks with your laptop, iPhone or iPod touch.

Getting people to start using gadgets for little things(iTunes) for free is a plus for T-Mobile when they want people to pay to access their mail, or surf a website...

@bitfactory: I didn't exactly mean the free stuff is going to damage them, I meant that the whole scheme of basically orienting the iPod touch around the iTunes store and making that the only linkin with Starbucks is going to hurt them. I think that unless Apple makes some immediate changes to the included software on the iPod Touch and changes their policy about 3rd party applications, there's little chance that the iPod Touch is going to be very well adopted - the price point for the Touch puts it far above the needs of most ordinary consumers and the ones who generally have to be bleeding edge are the ones least likely to appreciate the closed-universe of Touch-Starbucks-iTunes. Of course if you give away 50 million songs that means you have to pay someone for 50 million songs, so yes that does hurt the bottom line if there aren't enough customers actually purchasing music from iTunes.

@rg: Yes, I know that the iPod Touch can be used with free WiFi and I know that you can use the WiFi in the iPod Touch to access every ol' webpage. But that's not what Apple is marketing. Instead they're using the iPod Touch as a premium product to access other premium products; pay $100 premium for an iPod Touch and you'll get to pay $3 for a cup of coffee while paying $1 for a song you can't use on any other MP3 player! Hooray! That kind marketing works when you're pushing a loss-leader, but not so well when pushing a premium product. At least that's my guess from a marketing perspective. It's also my guess from a consumer perspective; I was excited by the iPod Touch initially but the reality of the limitations of it sank in somewhere between reaching for my wallet and actually pulling it out. And I don't think I'm alone.

@omg-ponies: Arrr.