iTunes on your Mobile

There’s nothing we like more than playing games on our mobile phones, but listening to music while we’re on the bus comes a close second. And, thanks to the latest generation of MP3 friendly handsets like Sony's Walkman phone, that’s just what we’ve been able to enjoy recently. But Motorola’s taken the concept of music on your mobile one step further by releasing a handset that’s compatible with Apple’s iTunes. iTunes is the online music download store where you can buy and download songs by everyone from the Black Eyed Peas to Black Sabbath (legally, we might add) and has, until now, required a pricey Apple iPod to listen to them away from your PC.

Motorola’s ROKR (pronounced “rocker”), the first non-Apple device to be compatible with iTunes, features a color display for viewing album art, dual built-in stereo speakers and stereo headphones that also serve as a mobile headset with microphone. Music fans can randomly autofill or manually fill the phone with playlists of their favorite music, audiobooks and Podcasts from their iTunes library via a USB connection.

It’s not all rosy, though; we were hoping for more memory for our music than the paltry 512MB that’s included, which is roughly enough room for 8 albums, depending upon their length. However, it’s a step in the right direction and we look forward to bigger and better things in the coming months!

The ROKR is available now from Carphone Warehouse for £210 or free with a contract from O2. It’ll become available on Virgin and BT Mobile before the end of the year.