Albert.apple.com goes live

For years, Phobos and Deimos, fear and loathing, the twin moons of Mars have provided the primary web objects interface between iTunes and Apple. Apple's published storeBag and secureBag protocols provide the details showing the URL vocabulary you can use to communicate with these servers.

Today, albert.apple.com finally came to life. Via secureBag, it provides the secure activation interface for your sparkling new iPhone. And even if you don't actually own an iPhone, the web-objects-based interface makes it easy to chat up Albert, as it were.

As of today, simply launch iTunes, and paste this linked URL into Safari and you will be presented with the following message (assuming you do not actually have an iPhone attached to your computer): "There is no SIM card installed in the iPhone you are attempting to activate. Please disconnect and insert a SIM card in the iPhone. Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policies | Terms & Conditions". Sure, it's not the same as having your own shiny new iPhone to play with, but isn't it nice to be able to talk directly to Albert?

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