Filed under: iPod Family, iTS, iTunes, iPhone
Gear Live reviews Starbucks on Wi-Fi iTunes
Today is October 2nd, the official launch of the Wi-Fi iTunes Store for Starbucks in Seattle and New York City. The folks at Gear Live live in Seattle, and were among the first to try the new service.It seems to work well. Upon launching iTunes on a laptop, they were automatically connected with full access to the iTunes Store (Plus some additional Starbucks content). A prominent "currently playing track" banner is updated dynamically, and the ten most recently played tracks are a click away.
They had similar luck with an iPhone. The Starbucks logo was in place in the Wi-Fi iTunes store, and clicking it displayed the same content as the laptop version.
If you're in Seattle or New York, please share your experiences. The rest of us can only wait.
[Via MacDailyNews]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
neil said 11:51AM on 10-02-2007
tried it at the starbucks at union sq this morning. got the free card - but never was able to even access the store - let alone see the icon.
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David F. Bills said 11:55AM on 10-02-2007
Tried in NYC 57th & 8th, got the card, but no icon either.
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Aron Trimble said 11:59AM on 10-02-2007
Now if AT&T would give us a free access to their WiFi hotspots...
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James Creedon said 12:17PM on 10-02-2007
Worked great in the NYC Financial District. You have to select the iTunes store on the phone, and the icon pops right up. Gives you a list of the last 10 tracks played in the store (more or less) as well as a variety of content organized in typical iTunes store fashion.
This is a pretty exciting development in my future-IP-lawyer opinion. Clearly, the mode of music distribution and sales is changing, and I think this Starbucks-Apple relationship is just the start of a historic shift. Plus, it is just plain cool...
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Speck said 12:18PM on 10-02-2007
The service is also live in NJ - at least in Westwood NJ. Didn't try it though, didn't have my iPhone with me.
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bibi-pov said 12:18PM on 10-02-2007
So, did anyone try to find out what makes a starbucks hotspot so special that the wi-fi iTunes sees it as a special hotspot? Any special bonjour name or service on the LAN? Anything else unusual? I'm just curious to know if we can push our own icon/playlist on the wi-fi iTunes....
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Sean Karns said 12:19PM on 10-02-2007
I had read somewhere that on the 25th of September all of the AT&T hotspots were to be open to AT&T customers. Not sure where I read that or if it was actually true...I'll get back with info if I find it.
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ciaran said 12:33PM on 10-02-2007
Uh, so it's not Wifi access @ Starbucks is it? It's just access to the damn store as far as I know...
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JT said 12:33PM on 10-02-2007
AT&T Pro and Elite DSL customers have access to AT&T wifi spots. Works fine.
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Kevin said 12:37PM on 10-02-2007
Worked great for me at 47th and 5th avenue.
But they weren't handing out cards. Boo. I'll have to go back after work.
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DrunkDwarf said 1:06PM on 10-02-2007
No iTunes via WiFi this morning for me at Spring and 3rd.
I got my Song of the Day card, but you can't redeem it via iPhone/touch.
Got my new iTunes stored value card with 2 free downloads. Also doesn't work with iPhone/touch.
Bought an Eddie Vedder Into the Wild iTunes Content Card. Also doesn't work with iPhone/touch. Also didn't work with iTunes, when I scratched off the coating and entered the code into iTunes I got: code has already been redeemed.
I emailed iTunes Store help about this and they responded: we see that you were able to redeem your Song of the Day code for Jokerman. Thank you for contacting iTunes Store help!
Obviously they are more than a bit frazzled.
Purchasing the Eddie Vedder card, iTunes reloadable value card and a couple food items held the line up for five minutes as they figured out how to activate everything.
I'll be headed back for lunch in an hour to see if the WiFi iTunes store is fixed.
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andy said 1:20PM on 10-02-2007
Worked great for me at 42nd and 8th ave. Although the iTunes WiFi icon was unchanged on the home screen, once you click on it, the Starbucks icon pops up as a fifth button along the bottom of the Wi-Fi store screen, next to the normal buttons. Seemed snappy and responsive.
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blinkcowz182 said 1:29PM on 10-02-2007
I can't wait until Apple partners with other stores like Abercrombie and Fitch so I can download all THAT great music! :)
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Mike said 1:49PM on 10-02-2007
Worked great for me in Glen Cove, NY.
Got the Wi-Fi store up easy and fine, saw what was playing and purchased a song.
One of the first things they said at the cash was if I purchased music online or not... then gave me the free song card (Bob Dylan).
There's a LOT of iTunes content around the styore - they're really putting their back into it!
Also like the idea of buying a card for a specific album - so you still have a retail face, but you get the content online... sits right alongside physical media in the store.
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3dvw said 1:51PM on 10-02-2007
Works on Long Island. I tried it in Miller Place worked great and got the free song card.
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Adam said 2:47PM on 10-02-2007
I could get to the WiFi store on my iPhone at the 8th St. Starbucks this morning, and the Starbucks button showed up, but that page wouldn't load. I also had to ask for a song of the day card, even though I bought a coffee.
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DrunkDwarf said 2:57PM on 10-02-2007
Tried 4th and Seneca in Seattle (Store #6) and finally got the Starbucks icon and content. But it was up and down. The song I purchased couldn't complete and told me to use my personal computer.
Got back to my own network and still had the starbucks button. :-) But still couldn't complete the song download on the iPhone.
All in all, the Starbucks wifi experience at two different stores here gets an F.
Embarassingly enough for them, I also couldn't get to tmobile. I've got a tmobile hotspot account so I thought I'd try that to see if that worked better than "free". I couldn't even get the login panel to come up! So an F for tmobile as well.
The support from the iTunes Store staff on my Eddie Vedder content card fiasco gets an A for perkiness but an F for actually resolving my problem. They keep writing me back to let me know I've been able to redeem this Starbucks code or that Starbucks code (which of course I already knew) but so far they really don't seem to understand the issue is with Eddie...
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BulkHedd said 4:54PM on 10-02-2007
I'd love to find out from someone who works at Starbucks how this all works and what equipment was installed for it. Would be pretty interesting.
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jtlax3 said 5:38PM on 10-02-2007
of course you have to ask. they should only give them out to people that want them, not to every single customer. I am just bummed that you can't download the song of the day on the iPhone.
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Brandon Werner said 3:21AM on 10-03-2007
I tried at the first Starbucks on Pike Street today just passing by to see if it came up. It didn't.
I can't believe they didn't do the first store in Seattle, so maybe it was down during one of those times I tried (2pm)
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