Macworld: Direct Music Downloads for the iPhone via 3G (Updated: and EDGE!)

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

During his Macworld Keynote (see our MASSIVE Live blog!), Phil Schiller today announced the death of the iPhone (and iPod Touch) WiFi Music Store -- and the birth of the WiFi and 3G Music Store!

Yup, iPhone 3G users can now browser and directly download music over the data network for anywhere, anytime access to new music.

UPDATE: Daring Fireball says downloads work over 2G/EDGE as well!

It seems to already be working, and working in multiple countries (including Canada! Yay!)

Have you downloaded any music directly to your iPhone yet? How did it work for you?

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

14 Comments
  • Does it require 2.2 software?
  • I have download three songs already. It works great. On 3G and EDGE!!! Im running iPhone 2.2. Not sure about other versions...
  • iTunes is AT ALL still not available in lot of EU countries. That worries me more than DRM-free or whatever. :-(
  • Lets continue to add stuff to itunes and to hell with the basic problems in the iPhone.
    As long as the ipod application works and people keep buying stuff from Apple there is no need to fix the phone problems. Slag those issues off onto ATT and keep on selling music. Nevermind that this is the single most troublesome phone ever foisted on the public.
    The only good news here is the death of DRM.
  • Yeah, much rather have seen copy&paste or something else more functional.
  • It's about time.
  • I wouldve bet money on at least some small things like To Dos in Calendar and Notes sync... But I wasn't expecting NO iPhone news at all. That was surprising.
    But it also may be that they're just saving all the iPhone goodies to unleash all at once later in one big orgasmic announcement. :)
  • I wish people could leave copy and paste alone for just ONE post. If they announced tomorrow that the unique combination of wifi and 3G signals coming from the iPhone was a 100% cure for cancer, you just know that there would be a few posts complaining about there was still no copy and paste.
    Have apple ever promised copy and paste? Did they advertise copy and paste? Go and buy an ipod touch and a blackberry/symbian/UIQ/WM machine if it bothers you that much. If its that big a deal, then dump the iPhone for something that does copy and paste?
    And back on topic. Woo! This will be handy.
  • I have not use this function yet
  • I don't need copy/paste.
  • seems to work on both edge and 3g here where i live in chicago 3g really fast when i bought a song of itunes for iphone just takes a little bit longer on edge but as long as it works its fine
  • but no downloads over 10mb on the 3G network...that is a little prohibitive (to say the least) when it comes to song downloads
  • @luke is that really true? that would become annoying. can anyone confirm on this??
  • I rather have copy n paste, then any additional feature that am not gonna use as much. It's true that apple didn't promis to add it but they have promised us that the future comming updates. But no instead of listening to customer need they just do what they want. Imagin the increase of music downloads after this. They're becoming just like Microsoft with vista, instead of fixing the bugs they focus on marketing just to sell more.