AT&T officially announced free Wi-Fi hotspot access for its iPhone customers on Thursday, after reports surfaced that the service was already available, then deleted the announcement and now says it was a "human error".

NYT's Saul Hansell has reached Fletcher Cook, an AT&T spokesman, who said the announcement on the site was an error, although his company has long planned to offer free Wi-Fi to customers with iPhones and other phones which feature Wi-Fi connectivity.

This probably means that Apple and AT&T are at odds about launching the service. Many analysts have pointed out that Apple's strategy would have probably been something like this: Steve Jobs would have made an appearance at a conference, let's say Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2008 which starts June 9; there Jobs would have announced the 3G iPhone and, as an extra, he would have also announced that iPhone customers can connect to any AT&T hotspot in the country through Wi-Fi.

We'll have to wait and see how this plays out, as the companies have no further comment at the moment.

The Wi-Fi service at Starbucks was first announced in February this year, when the coffee chain ended a partnership with T-Mobile and started a brand new one with AT&T, promising to offer consumers Wi-Fi connectivity in all the 7,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S.

In February this year, AT&T unveiled that customers who will buy the Starbucks purchase card will receive two hours of free wireless access. Those who want more than two hours have two options. They could buy another additional two hours for $3,99 or a monthly membership which costs $19.99 and includes access to any of AT&T's 70,000 hot spots in 89 countries around the world.