TMO Reports - iTunes 4.9 Confirms Existence of iPod Phone

by , 11:30 AM EDT, June 28th, 2005

Dialog instructions buried inside version 4.9 of Apple's iTunes software give clear evidence that some type of "iPod Phone" does exist and will use iTunes to synchronize not only music but contact information as well, The Mac Observer has learned.

A resource file that is included with iTunes 4.9 contains instructions that will be displayed to a user based on certain tasks. Among the wordage includes "iPod Phone Prefs," "iPod Phone iTunes Setup Assistant," "The mobile phone cannot be ejected," "Eject mobile phone," "iPod mobile phone," "Mobile Phone Updating contacts," "The name of my mobile phone is...," "Open iTunes when this mobile phone is attached," and "Display album artwork on this mobile phone."

Among other instructions include, "iTunes will automatically fill your mobile phone with a random selection of songs from your library. You may fill your mobile phone with a different selection of songs by pressing Autofill in the mobile phone playlist."

In addition, the instructions make it clear that iTunes 4.9 will be used to not only synchronize with an iPod Phone to transfer music, but also to transfer contact information, instead of transferring music through iTunes and contacts through iSync, which Apple previously did.

What is also not known is if synchronization will happen via USB or via a wireless Bluetooth connection.

The wordage clearly shows that a wireless phone with the ability to synchronize with iTunes does exist. What is not known is if the "iPod Phone" is a product being developed solely by Apple Computer, or the much-anticipated mobile phone offering soon-to-be-announced by Apple and Motorola. There is strong evidence that if anything, the "iPod Phone" is most likely the product being developed jointly with Motorola.

"Motorola revealed some time ago that there would be an iTunes phone," Jupiter analyst Joe Wilcox told The Mac Observer. "What's interesting about the new information is how the synchronization will work. Microsoft also offers media player-to- phone synch, but nothing like the autofill Apple plans for the iTunes phone. Offering a music phone is meaningless without easy synchronization."

Various online Web sites are reporting that Apple has scheduled a media event for early July. It is not know if this event is related to an announcement connected with a wireless product or not.