No iTunes on Motorola E1060 (UPDATE)

February 15th, 2005 at 2:00 PM - News by Misha Sakellaropoulo

Motorolais E1060 mobile phone unveiled Monday will not have iTunes compatibility and is not "the" iTunes phone, TMO has learned.

The demonstration of iTunes capabilities on the E1060 at the 3GSM World Congress where it was introduced was simply to show off the technology. Reuters apparently misunderstood this in their story, which created a snowball effect and led other outlets to proclaim the E1060 the iTunes phone.

"It appears that Motorola was demonstrating the capabilities of playing iTunes music on the E1060, but that the E1060 is not going to have the ability to play iTunes songs," Jason Gales of MobileTracker, which broke the story, told TMO. Alan Buddendeck, direct of public relations at Motorola, has confirmed this same report to TMO.

MacWorld UK reported Wednesday a Motorola spokeswoman confirming, "this product was used only as a demo to showcase the iTunes application...For competitive reasons, we are holding information (including specifications and design) very closely until the appropriate time and venue for product launch...We will be announcing the first iTunes phone in the near future."

Mr. Gales suspects Motorola may roll out the actual iTunes-compatible phone at the CTIA Wireless convention in New Orleans next month.