Nokia Beta Labs isn’t just there for the Symbian things in life. As well as pumping out bleeding edge S60 apps at what seems like a rate of twenty or so a day, Nokia have also released experimental PC software - usually novel takes on their synching apps or ways of controlling you phone from the desktop.
Nokias Music is at first glance a bit of a departure, given that it is an iTunes-like music player and organiser that lets you manage your digital music collection and hook up to a wide range of MP3 players. You can knock together playlists and rip CDs directly to connected devices.
Obviously, this primarily intended to e used with Nokia phones like the N81 and N95 but perhaps leaving things open will convince a few people to give a music-oriented smartphone a try - particularly when Nokia rolls out more phone-oriented features like Nokia Music Store integration.
Nokia Music PC Client is a 63MB download for Windows Vista and XP with service pack 2, available here.
Starbucks is doing it (Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell). Bacardi is doing it (Er, Groove Armada). Red Bull is reportedly doing it later this year. What? Forming a record label, that’s what.
Why shouldn’t Nokia? It’s a question I asked the company’s Tero Ojanpera at this morning’s press event in London. And here’s his reply:
“No, we don’t intend to become a record label. It’s about activities such as A&R and scouting talent. What I hope we are able to do is use technology to discover new talent, and to promote talent too. But we are not planning to become a record label.”
So there you have it.
Nokia has signed up a second major label for its Comes With Music scheme, which launches later this year. The news was announced at an event in London.
This means Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Pink, Justin Timberlake and more artists will be available as part of the service.
Sony BMG joins Universal Music Group in partnership with Nokia, although there was no news on how close the other majors - Warner Music Group and EMI - are to signing, let alone the thousands of independent labels.
If you need a reminder about Comes With Music, the theory is simple: buy a Comes With Music phone, and you’ll get unlimited access to “millions” of tracks, for no extra cost, for 12 months.
And at the end of that year, you can keep everything you’ve downloaded (you’ll have to pay again to keep downloading new stuff though).
Sure, that BeatEd drum synth a couple of posts down is all very well if you like your rhythms nice, clean and pleasant sounding.
If, however, your drumming skills lean more towards Animal from the Muppets (e.g. you just like hitting things and making a racket) then NiiMe Drums might be more your cup of special brew.
A spin off from the NiiMe motion-sensing project - that aims to take greater advantage of Nokia’s accelerometer technology - NiiMe Drums is out on the 1st of May and looks like great fun.
The developer has posted a YouTube video of the app in action - it goes on a bit (a bit less footage of him fiddling around opening the app would have improved things) but it gets to the point eventually.
So - who fancies coding up an S60 guitar synth so we can form the first mobile phone band?
The UK mobile operators have been offering full-track music downloads for a while now, but they’ve not quite caught on as fast as they hoped. In Japan, it’s a different story.
According to new figures from industry body the RIAJ, mobile full-track downloads increased by 91% last year, and mobile downloads overall (i.e. including ringtones) now generate more than 90% of all digital music sales in Japan.
The growth is being driven by youngsters, who got used to downloading music to their phones rather than to their PCs. However, those pesky kids aren’t doing everything the music industry wants them to – the RIAJ says that more than 400 million mobile full-tracks were illegally downloaded in Japan last year, and has started airing TV ads warning against it.
Keen on music? You’ll be interested in Nokia’s upcoming Comes With Music scheme then. Due to launch later this year, it involves getting unlimited music bundled in with the price of a handset.
As many tunes as you want for no extra cost, with the caveat that they can only be from record labels who’ve signed a deal with Nokia.
So far, only one has: Universal Music Group. And according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter, Nokia is paying the label $35 for every Comes With Music handset that it sells. Although another report has since revised that figure to $33.50.
Anyway, the point is that music industry blog Coolfer has done some sums, using that info to calculate how much Nokia might pay if it signs similar deals with the other record labels, based on their market share. And the answer is…
Continue reading ‘Comes With Music could add £58.43 to the price of a Nokia handset’
Blimey, that Nokia 6212 classic phone has only just been announced and already someone has come up with a device that will work with its Near Field Communication features - the Parrot PARTY.
This Bluetooth speaker looks a bit like an old fashioned telephone handset (I can’t believe I just called a normal handset old-fashioned. Good grief) and should work with any Bluetooth Stereo compatible phone, PC or Mac.
Tap it against an NFC-capable device like the Nokia 6212 and it will pair up automatically and just start pumping out whatever ‘choons’ you believe will best entertain the other passengers on your bus.
The Parrot PARTY “Black Edition” retails at around £89.99 and should be available from the 31st of May.
Madonna is clearly pretty sharp when it comes to music, invariably surrounding herself with cutting-edge producers and collaborators for each new album (before dumping them for people even more cutting-edge the next time). But it seems she’s also pretty savvy when it comes to mobile, or at least her management are.
See, Madge’s next album is out soon. It’s called ‘Hard Candy’. And to say it’s being promoted heavily to mobile users is an understatement. She started by signing a deal with Vodafone here in Europe.
It involves distributing seven tracks from ‘Hard Candy’ during the week leading up to its release on 28th April - one a day - for Vodafone customers to download. They also bagged an exclusive on her new single ‘4 Minutes’, and will have a dedicated Madonna mini-site on Vodafone Live.
But that was just the start…
Continue reading ‘Is Madonna the most mobile-friendly popstar ever?’
We have mentioned the social music recommendation/web radio site Last.FM a couple of times here on Pocket Picks - most recently the beta of AsPlayer a couple of weeks ago.
AsPlayer collects data about music played on your phone and ‘Scrobbles’ it to Last.FM. The app works fairly well for an early beta, but is unsigned and requires S60 Python to run.
Mobbler has pretty much the same feature set as AsPlayer, but is a native Symbian app which has been helpfully signed by the developer.
Sadly, like AsPlayer, Mobbler lacks the ablity to access Last.FM’s recommendations or streamed music. Any coders out there fancy taking up the challenge?
Her words will be her own, and rest assured, shelovesyou shelovesyou shelovesyou. Yep, Natasha Bedingfield will be the star attraction on this weekend’s Nokia Green Room on Channel 4 - it’s the show that Nokia is sponsoring to promote its Nokia Music Store. Other acts appearing include Feeder (are they still going?), The Delays (likewise) and Leon Jean-Marie.
The mobile-broadcasting tie-up means there’ll also be exclusive live tracks on the Nokia Music Store from Monday morning from all those acts, as free MP3s. That’s right, free. It’s an interesting counterpart to what Apple’s done in the past with its sponsored iTunes gigs, although in those cases, Apple sold the resulting live tracks on iTunes, rather than giving away.
The Green Room looks set to be just the start of a huge promotional push by Nokia for mobile music this year, particularly once its Comes With Music scheme launches - where you’ll buy a handset and get free unlimited music thrown in as part of the cost. It’s also just the latest example of how mobile firms are increasingly influential in music TV, following previous sponsorships by T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone.
(via NokNok)
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