Danny Gorog24 April 2008, 10:40 AM
Nokia has launched an Australian Music Store with claims the site gives consumers 'real freedom to enjoy music at their fingertips.' But 'freedom' doesn't seem to describe it well.
Nokia has officially launched its Australian edition of the Nokia Music Store. According to the PR guff the store delivers 'millions of tracks from global hits to local artists' and gives consumers the 'real freedom' to enjoy music at their fingertips.
I searched for 'Paul Simon' and came up with one album, while the same search in iTunes yielded 3 pages of results.
The launch of the store is being celebrated with an exclusive live album from ARIA award winning group The John Butler Trio. As a fan of the John Butler Trio I headed over to the store on my Mac and quickly realised getting access to the 'millions of tracks' is only for those consumers using Microsoft Windows XP or Vista and Internet Explorer 6 and above. So I booted up Windows and searched for John Butler Trio on the Nokia site. It returned 7 albums, in iTunes I found 13. Millions of tracks? Not so much.
If you do happen to run the Windows/IE configuration (as lots of people do) then your next challenge is to wade neck deep through heavily DRM-infested waters. According to the Nokia Music site, 'the audio file format used in the Nokia Music Store is Windows Media Audio (WMA), and the tracks are protected by Microsoft Windows Media Digital Rights Management (WM DRM).' Nokia suggest that for more information about DRM, you 'see Microsoft DRM page.' (Translation: if it doesn't work for you, bug Microsoft)
If all that still sounds OK, Nokia will charge you $1.70 per track (that's 1c more than iTunes Australia, but who's counting 1c coins these days) with albums going for $17.00. The Nokia Music store also offers a subscription option - for $10 per month you get unlimited access to streaming music via your PC.
The Nokia music store is also available to buy and browse on compatible mobile phones which include the N95, N81, N82, N91, N76, 6500, 6267, 5700, 5610, 5310, 5300 and 5200.
It strikes me as an interesting move on the part of Nokia. I realise Nokia can't just sit by and watch Apple take the music business by storm, but surely they realise the only other businesses successfully selling digital music are e-music and Amazon. Both only sell DRM-free music that is playable on any device, including all the Nokia phones listed above. Additionally, the sort of innovation you'd expect from this type of music store, namely a subscription model that works on the phone, doesn't exist.
What do you think? Do you use one of these Nokia phones and have you tried
the store yet?