Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 17 April 2008 17:42
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
Nokia’s music store – the mobile giant’s answer to iTunes – is set to
open its ‘virtual doors’ to Australians on April 22, with millions of
tracks available to download, buy and also stream. Three of the four
major labels are there, along with a host of others, with Warner yet to
agree. Should Apple be worried?
Already open in overseas markets, Nokia’s Music Store will finally open in
Australia - on April 22, 2008, with more than 2 million tracks from Sony BMG Australia, EMI and Universal Music, among others, with Warner yet to seal the deal.
Interestingly, according to the Nokia Music Store in the UK, the store is only accessible via the Internet Explorer browser. Firefox users that own a compatible Nokia must switch over to IE to get access, or at least, for the time being.
Unlike Apple which charges AUD $1.69 per track, Nokia has decided to charge a cent extra, at $1.70 per track, while albums will start ‘from’ $17, implying some albums could cost more.
In addition, a subscription of AUD $10 per month will be available for PC users so they can stream an “unlimited number of full length tracks”.
The tracks will be available as 192Kbps encoded in Windows Media Audio (WMA) DRM, and while some older tracks are only available in a 128Kbps format, Nokia says the older tracks are progressively being upgraded to 192Kbps.
The PC store, accessed via Nokia Music’s Australian site (which goes live April 22), and which is separate from an upcoming Nokia Music PC Client, lets you not only buy tracks and albums in WMA DRM format for transfer to a range of compatible Nokia phones, it can also create playlists which can then be streamed on demand if the subscription option is chosen.
If a track is purchased, you can have up to two copies – one on your Nokia phone, the other on your PC.
While the new subscription service is certainly useful, subscription in this case means that tracks can only be streamed to PCs and not transferred to other devices.
No mention is made as to whether or not music can also be streamed directly to Nokia phones, something that I will check up on, but if not, it’s likely because streaming music direct to your phone can chew up a lot of potentially expensive mobile data bandwidth and battery life – I’ll be in contact with Nokia to get the answer.
So, how does Nokia’s subscription service appear to be very different to those offered in the US? And which Nokia phones are compatible? Please read onto page 2.
