iTunes phone coming next Tuesday (UPDATE)

Sources informed MacosXrumors that Apple and Motorola will launch the long awaited iTunes mobile phone as soon as on Tuesday, June the 28th.

The new phone will have similar characteristics and design as the Motorola E398, and will have a storage capacity of 512MB, enough to store about 120 songs in iTunes' format.

A mobile version of iTunes will be used in this phone, allowing it to play songs protected with Apple's FairPlay DRM technology. However, it will not be possible to buy songs directly from the phone.

Synchronization will be done through iTunes like with an iPod. Sources told MacosXrumors that the current version of iTunes 4.8 is already capable to work with this phone.

Apple and Motorola had announced their partnership in July the 26th, 2004, but then struggled to convince different international service providers to sell the iTunes phone with their offers. Most of these companies where already considering launching their own music service. That's the reason why the release of this product saw several months of delay. However, it looks like this problem is now solved and that the two companies are ready for a launch.

If you can confirm this or can provide additional information, don't hesitate to contact us.

UPDATE: The French newspaper Le Figaro has published a report with very similar information, while Reuters claims that Cingular is considering the iTunes phone and has been in talks with Apple.