iTunes mobile phone to debut in January?

The iTunes-equipped mobile phone that Apple and Motorola are working on is set to debut early next year, according to Cupertino's head of apps.

Eddie Cue, Apple's vice president of applications, told Forbes: "We've said we have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we're definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you'll be able to see more about it soon."

With speculation that the phone is to debut at the company's Macworld event in January, Cue refused to be drawn further on a possible release date.

He did add the phone would be aimed at the consumer market as a whole: "It has to be a phone in the middle-tier of the market, not a $500-tier phone. It has to be very seamless to use. And we're very happy with the results."

Meanwhile, the old-school iTunes Music Store is continuing to sell songs at a rapid rate of knots. Apple announced that has shifted 200 million songs in the US, with 50 million of them being sold in the last two months.