Starbucks and iTunes: Ready for prime time?

Today’s the day that Starbucks begins its iTunes Wi-Fi Store promo at locations in Seattle and New York. (You may remember that Steve Jobs announced this partnership with Starbucks during Apple’s September 5 press event, alongside Starbucks founder and chairman Howard Schultz.)

So how’s that launch going? I couldn’t tell you — I’m in San Francisco, which a person with even a rudimentary grasp of geography can tell you is nowhere near Seattle or New York. So I’m turning the stage over to Glenn Fleishman, a frequent Macworld contributor whose work also graces Wi-Fi Net News among other places.

Glenn’s report from Seattle follows after the jump.

I'm sitting in a busy Starbucks in the University District in Seattle with an iPhone, a PowerBook, and an iPod touch (on loan from Apple), and have briefly glimpsed what the vaunted Apple/Starbucks partnership should look like: a Starbucks logo flashed up showing the current song playing on an iPod touch after connecting to the "tmobile" network - the height of irony when I'm using an AT&T phone, of course. I saw the last 10 songs played, then the service died. And then the network died.

The launch at 600 stores in Seattle and New York today also kicked off the first day in a 50-million song giveaway. I was handed a Song of the Day card good for Bob Dylan's Jokerman. (The picture of Dylan is a cross between Vincent Price and Prince.)

I asked a friendly barista if the network was down, and he said that the service might be available by noon, but that I should "check back next week, too." The barista said other stores in Seattle were also having trouble this morning. T-Mobile's hotspot service was also dead: I couldn't call up a gateway page to connect to the Internet from any of my Wi-Fi devices.

This is a bit of a technology black eye: You don't launch a service at 600 stores without, you know, testing it in all those stores. Later launches might have more wiggle room.

Anyone else in the Seattle or New York area giving this a try? What have your experiences been like?

Update: The indefatigable Mr. Fleishman follows up with a full-fledged first look over at Macworld.

Category: News, Wi-Fi

Posted by Philip Michaels on Oct 2 2007, 2:23 PM ET

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