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« Apple Offers Direct Music Purchases over Wi-Fi; iPod with Wi-Fi, Too; Starbucks Deal | Main | Bus-Fi v Bus-Fi: Microsoft Gets into Commuter Wi-Fi Service for Employees »

September 6, 2007

Hotspot Renaissance from iPod Touch? Hardly

The new iPod with Wi-Fi--the iPhone without the phone--won't bring huge bucks into stores other than Starbucks: The reason is that Apple mysteriously has chosen to make no hotspot deals except with Starbucks, nor allow third-party applications (so far). Which means that getting onto any but a free network that doesn't require a login is a hassle. Without an application or a partnership deal in place, users who want to use the average for-fee hotspot, even one for which they have an account, will have to engage in the tedious task of entering their details each time they use the network.

The other part of this problem is that hotspot operators have told me that they've never been excited by the prospect of having mobile devices that can download huge files without additional compensation. I believe that's one reason that Apple restricted the iTunes purchases from iPods and iPhones to music. I can't see a simple way by which hotspot operators can recoup additional bandwidth costs; they may have to impose throttling if they don't already. (I suspect most well-run hotspots have variable throttling based on overall usage and a particular user's usage.)

Starbucks can see this as a minor win for them, because of the frictionless process of gaining access with an iPhone or iPod touch. There's no account entry to buy music; it seems like a small step from that into bundling T-Mobile HotSpot accounts with iPods and iPod touchs, but that might run afoul of the AT&T deal Apple has for the iPhone. (Where's AT&T WiFi, that company's Wi-Fi hotspot network? Apparently, part of a different division--the consumer part--and almost entirely McDonald's stores, as I've previously reported.)

1 Comment

Wouldn't the built in browser provide the option (through cookies) to remember login information? Correct me if I am wrong, but don't many free wi fi services have simple 'remember me' check boxes for their web page logins?

And even those that don't have such cookie interaction through a web page require you to login every time on a lap top? How is this an oversight on Apples part?

[Editor's note: There are a lot of problems with using cookies to store authentication over time, because at hotspots, that information can sniffed, replayed, and used to hijack and sidejack. Apple could have done deals with hotspot operators to create a login app that would have hidden this mess and created a more secure process. Boingo, iPass, Devicescape, etc., all have pieces of this technology in place.-gf]