Motorola's iTunes Phone on the Rocks

The tech match made in heaven has prompted a hell of a standoff.

Bowing to pressure from its wireless telco customers, Motorola (MOT Quote) yanked its new Apple (AAPL Quote) iTunes phone from its scheduled unveiling at the CeBIT technology show in Hanover, Germany, on Thursday.

And to the disappointment of gadget lovers here in the U.S., Motorola's much-anticipated entry will be missing from the lineup of new music and media-playing phones from Nokia (NOK Quote), Samsung and SonyEricsson debuting this week at the wireless industry CTIA show in New Orleans.

Building on the design success of its thin metal-clad Razr phone, Motorola tapped Apple for iTunes, the music system inside the iPod digital music player. The scorchingly hot idea came together in a new music phone called Rokr. ...