According to this piece from Reuters (it’ll link rot soon since it’s up on Yahoo!), Motorola is starting to trickle out info on their new iTunes phones, and while details are scarce (look for more from Gizmodo later today), what’s here looks promising (emphasis mine):
“Motorola (NYSE:MOT – news) said on Thursday it is working on several mobile phones that are compatible with Apple’s (Nasdaq:AAPL – news) iTunes music service and some of which can store eight hours of songs
…
The fact that some iTunes phones can store eight hours of music or more is different from initial announcements last year that Motorola phones would only carry a small number of songs. Motorola’s E790 handset will work on second-generation mobile networks, and not the faster, third-generation (3G) systems. ”
This, on top of the earlier announcement of Nokia integrating Microsoft’s music store, makes things very interesting. Will Yahoo! partner with Sony Ericson? If not, who?
(I’ll tie this into some broader concepts tomorrow or Friday, as time allows.)