Nokia have launched their own music store

Nokia diversifies: now selling music online

Source: SMH reports on Nokia Music Store

The Nokia Australia music store opened their virtual doors for business 22 April 2008. Nokia wants to to expand and strengthen their market hold on more than just mobile devices - to all things mobile or “on the go”.

Whist Australia quite often misses out on new developments such as this, we are actually one in 10 countries to have a localised Nokia music store. For this we must thank and congratulate Nokia!

Nokia’s Australian music store will also have a strong local flavour - alongside their international offered tunes. Perhaps more importantly - they’ll be supporting independent artists as well. A big yay!

“So who can access it - and how?”

According to the Nokia press release:

With a single account, Australian music lovers can access the Nokia Music Store via their personal computer or directly from their optimised Nokia devices including the Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N81 8GB and the N82. In addition, the ability to sync from a PC is available on a wider range of Nokia models including the latest Xpress Music handets, Nokia 5610 and Nokia 5310.

“What if any, are the limitations?”

Whilst i’m excited about any new options for downloading music online, I discovered that (at this stage at least) the Nokia Music stores aren’t compatible with the Mozilla Firefox browser. Hmm, do they not realise how many the world over have switched to Firefox as a safer better internet browser? So at this stage, I haven’t set up an account to check it out properly.

And - for Apple lovers, you cannot sync to your iPod family of digital music players. The files are in WMA format.

So, can they seriously tackle the Apple / iTunes market? I guess any competition is good competition, right?! This is only their beginning…

“What’s it gunna cost me?”

Individual tracks will cost A$1.70 per track and albums from A$17.00. Their will also be a monthly subscription offered for PC users to stream an unlimited number of full length tracks for A$10.00 per month.

“Where can I try it out for myself?”

Go for it! Check out Nokia’s online store.

Let us know what you think music lovers

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