You think that Apple would do much better.  The iPhone has wifi, so why introduce the computer into the equation?   It's too much of a pain to sync that way.

Forget about EDGE.  Use the WIFI connection!  That's the way my Sansa Connect works.  You don't even have to be retrained to find a USB cable, hook it up to a computer, recognize the connection, and figure out how to make it sync.  It's all on the device - a beautiful thing :-)

I think the larger problem with wireless music downloads is the loss of control. With the strong pairing of the Store, the desktop software and the hardware device, Apple can keep a pretty tight grip. If they chose to enable un-tethered music downloading, the foundation starts to crumble and new revenue models will likely be required. In the Sansa model, for instance, you are actually renting music all of which goes away if/when you cancel your contract, in this case with Yahoo Music. I agree the music acquisition process over the wireless network is fun and easy but there's more to the whole music management experience than just how you get new songs, right? What about managing playlists? What about music videos? What about long-term archival? Plus, to focus on iTunes as the weak link here for the iPhone is ludacris - more than music and videos are kept up to date thru this software. Its not like you aren't already using a similar piece of software with your other smartphone, right?

Early Adopter Extraordinaire!