last100 » Comes With Music

Nokia’s all-you-can eat music service now “comes with” its own flagship touch screen phone – Nokia X6

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:02:57 +0000

Although I’d put poor marketing, carrier resistance, and possibly DRM, ahead of the lack of a flagship device to explain why Comes With Music, Nokia’s all-you-can-eat music service, hasn’t been the hit the handset maker had hoped for, the company’s newly announced X6 music phone is encouraging.

The device, unveiled at Nokia World today, is to be a Comes With Music exclusive offering, and sports a 3.2-inch touch screen display (16:9 ratio at 360 x 640 pixels), 32 GB of built-in storage, a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash, A-GPS and WiFi, amongst its impressive stats. And in a first for Nokia, that touch screen is capacitive (not resistive), meaning that its should be a lot more responsive to the touch of a finger. Regular readers will know I’m not a fan of old skool stylus optimized resistive screens.

A quick recap of how Comes With Music works: you purchase a qualifying Nokia handset and then get access to the entire library of the Nokia Music Store for 12 – 18 months and get to keep any downloaded tracks once the subscription ends. For that privilege, the Nokia X6 has an estimated retail price of EUR 450, although the handset maker is stressing that ‘in many, many markets’, thanks to carrier subsidy, the device should be closer to “free”.

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Nokia admits mistakes over UK launch of “Comes With Music”

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:29:12 +0000

Nokia and I are in agreement over at least one thing: the company made mistakes when launching its all-you-can-eat music subscription offering “Comes With Music” in the UK. The service whereby you purchase a qualifying Nokia handset and then get access to the entire library of the Nokia Music Store for 12 – 18 months and get to keep any downloaded tracks once the subscription ends, was launched in the UK on two aging phones and with the backing of only one carrier and one retail chain.

Rob Taylor, vice president of Nokia Music, tells the Telegraph newspaper:

“The UK was our first launch market, and we learned a lot from that experience… We learned that the right device is just as important as what we’re offering. When we launched in the UK, the timing was such that we launched it with two devices that were slightly out of date.

That’s not really something that helped us in the UK at the time. But we learned from that, and subsequent launches in other countries with the [touch-screen] Nokia 5800, the hero device, are doing very, very well.”

Taylor also says that in future Nokia needs more retail partners for Comes With Music (other than Carphone Warehouse) and that the company would be back with the 5800. “We won’t give up on Comes with Music, or the UK.”

There was, however, no mention of other issues that I believe have held back adoption of the service. The use of Digital Rights Management is one potential, if overstated, deal breaker, and then there is the lack of carrier subsidy, and perhaps most importantly, poor messaging in the way Comes With Music has been marketed.

See: Why has Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ been a flop in the UK?

On a brighter note, Taylor says that both Nokia and the major record labels are encouraged with the way in which users have been using the service. From the Telegraph:

“Comes with Music users are downloading around 200-300 tracks in their first month,” he said. “Around 90 per cent of our usual sales from the Nokia Music Store are new songs. With Comes with Music, it’s the complete opposite. About 90 per cent of those downloads are from the back catalogue, and 10 per cent are new releases. It means people are enjoying music, and they’re enjoying the history of music. They’re going back and discovering not just one Rolling Stones album, but they’re looking at the whole discography.

“The music industry is pretty encouraged by this.”

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Why has Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ been a flop in the UK?

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:59:14 +0000

Nokia's Comes With Music at Carphone Warehouse, UK

Nokia’s all-you-can-eat music offering “Comes With Music” (CWM) hasn’t exactly caught on in the UK, according to Music Ally, with the service attracting just over 23,000 active users. “Given the high-profile marketing campaign around its launch with retailer Carphone Warehouse, that’s a sluggish start”, notes the site. So why has CWM been a flop here in the UK?

First a quick recap of what CWM offers: those who purchase a supported Nokia handset get 12 months “unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalog with the ability to keep all downloaded tracks even after the year is over.” Tracks can be downloaded “over the air” or sideloaded via a PC (Windows only), and are ‘policed’ using Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM). To continue downloading tracks on an “unlimited” basis once the 12 months are up, users need to purchase a new CWM handset.

While the thinking behind CWM has some merit – offer a paid-for music service in a way that “feels like free” and compensates labels and artists accordingly – Nokia’s execution has been poor, at least in the UK (sales elsewhere are reportedly much better), although much of the blame, as always, must rest with the record labels themselves.

The use of DRM is one obvious issue. The industry has rightly moved to the DRM-free mp3 format, for a la carte downloads at least, and since CWM is an attempt to bridge the gap between subscription and a la carte downloads, offering the benefits of both, the use of DRM in order to keep users within the Nokia ecosystem and appease the labels’ fear of piracy has likely put off a substantial number of potential customers (at least those who understand DRM and CWM’s limitations). Getting to keep all the music you’ve downloaded once your subscription is up is a lot less attractive if that music is permanently tied to a single (outdated) phone and single PC.

Lack of carrier subsidy. CWM in the UK has only managed to sign up one mobile carrier, “3″, who are the smallest of the five networks in the UK. On top of this, “3″’s marketing of CWM has been lackluster. Instead, Nokia has had to mainly rely on its pre-pay (PAYG) CWM offering in which customers have a much higher upfront cost.

Outdated phones. Perhaps because of the lack of carrier subsidy, Nokia’s CWM offering in the UK is currently limited to two aging handsets, and marketed mostly around the outdated Nokia XpressMusic 5310. In contrast, the latest XpressMusic phone – the touch screen 5800 – has sold extremely well here in the UK but isn’t being offered as part of CWM.

Poor messaging. Despite a high-profile campaign, I never felt the message was getting through. It may have said the right thing – users can download “millions” of tracks and get to “keep” them – but it was still strangely ambigious. In hindsight, I think Nokia should have attacked the expense of download stores such as iTunes head on or marketed the service more at parents who are concerned about their kids “stealing” music.

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Vodafone Music’s DRM-free move makes Apple and Nokia look bad

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:08:13 +0000

Vodafone, which currently operates music download stores in over 20 countries, is to become the latest company to jump on the DRM-free bandwagon, announcing this week that it will soon be transitioning its music catalog away from the copy-protected WMA format to standard MP3s. Additionally, customers will be able to covert their existing Vodafone purchases to DRM-free versions at no extra charge, unlike Apple’s current iTunes arrangement where users wishing to ‘upgrade’ are effectively asked to pay twice.

That’s the good news as far as Vodafone is concerned. The bad: only three of the four major record labels are on board – Universal Music Group, Sony Music and EMI – with Warner, for now at least, refusing to join in the fun, and the whole DRM-free deal only applies to a la carte downloads not Vodafone’s MusicStation all-you-can eat subscription service.

Although DRM-free music downloads via the PC are just about the norm these days, until recently the majority of ‘over-the-air’ mobile offerings still employed some form of copy-protection technology. How times are changing. AmazonMP3 was recently chosen as the default music store on the T-Mobile G1, the first device running the Google-led Android mobile operating system, and the e-tailer has a similar arrangement with Palm for its upcoming Pre smartphone. Meanwhile, in January Apple’s iTunes Store completed its lengthy transition to a DRM-free format, including adding 3G ‘over-the-air’ music downloads to the iPhone sans DRM.

Nokia missing in action

As a side note: all of this DRM-free love is making Nokia look decidedly out of touch. Just yesterday, the handset maker announced that its music download store and ambitious ‘Comes With Music’ (CwM) all-you-can-eat subscription service is rapidly expanding to include more countries and support on three new music-focused phones, yet both the Nokia Music Store and CwM heavily rely on DRM. Although copy-protection technology is probably a necessary evil for CwM, at the insistence of the major record labels who, along with Nokia, are nervously moving into very new territory, for a la carte downloads it just doesn’t make sense. Until the Nokia Music Store drops DRM, I suspect more tech-savvy customers will continue to shop elsewhere, even if that means putting up with the inconvenience of ’side-loading’ music to their phone via a PC.

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Nokia ramps up music ambitions; three new handsets, Nokia Music Store and ‘Comes With Music’ expansion

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:55:44 +0000

Perhaps to the disdain of mobile carriers, Nokia continues to ramp up its own music offering. Three new music-focused handsets were announced today, along with expansion of the company’s own music download store and all-you-can-eat ‘Comes With Music’ subscription-based offering.

Of the three new handsets, the most interesting is the higher end XpressMusic 5730 (available Q3, €280), which is Nokia’s first music phone to feature a full (slide out) QWERTY keyboard, and just like the 5800, runs the company’s Symbian S60 smartphone OS. The 5730 is being pitched as both a music-centric and messaging – think email, IM and social networking – device, featuring a redesigned home screen that gives shortcut access to the phone’s music library, and the socially-aware ‘contacts’ bar, which is able to pull in the latest communication and RSS feeds from up to 20 of a user’s most important contacts.

In addition to the XpressMusic 5730, the mid range 5330 slider was unveiled (Q3, €260), along with the 5030 XpressRadio, which is being targeted at emerging markets (Q2, €40), and is Nokia’s first phone to feature an internal FM radio antenna, eliminating the need to use a headset in order to get reception.

On the services front, the Nokia Music Store (see video), which is currently available in 15 countries, including the UK but not the U.S., opened its doors in Mexico today, “with additional markets such as Portugal, Norway and South Africa joining the fold in the coming months”, according to the press release. While Nokia’s ambitious all-you-can-eat music subscription offering, ‘Comes With Music’, which is currently limited to the UK and Singapore, will arrive in Australia later this month, with Italy, Sweden and Mexico to follow. Again, no word on a U.S. launch.

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Nokia’s Comes With Music is everywhere, but is the message getting through?

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:37:34 +0000

Having spent a fair amount of time driving around London over the last few days, one thing is evident: Comes With Music, Nokia’s all-you-can-eat music service, has definitely launched in the UK, backed by a costly ad campaign and a big holiday season push by retail partner Carphone Warehouse (prime time TV ads shown during X Factor, if I recall correctly). But how well is the message getting through?

On that note, I decided to pop into one of Carphone’s larger stores to take a closer peek at the display advertising for Comes With Music — there was plenty of it — and to ask a few subtle questions about how well the concept is resonating with consumers.

I counted three sections of display advertising for Comes With Music throughout the store, with two featuring a demo area where you can actually listen to the Nokia XpressMusic 5310 handset and try out the PC software used for “side loading” music onto the phone. However, during the 30 plus minutes I spent in the store, I didn’t see a single customer pick up the connected headphones or even play with the device. Interestingly, the only other handset to get its own hands-on demo area was Apple’s iPhone.

All of the Comes With Music ads emphasize two things: users can download “millions” of tracks, and get to “keep” them. The latter point is of course what sets Nokia’s offering apart from most other music subscription services, although the message is perhaps purposely ambiguous. (You get to keep the music you download. As apposed to what, giving it back? — see our previous coverage.)

Carphone Warehouse offers the entry level Comes With Music handset on both a pre-pay (”pay as you go”) basis or with a fixed contract on “3″ mobile, but it’s the former that’s being pushed hardest, pitching it as an ideal Christmas gift. There are actually four pre-pay Comes With Music bundles on offer, ranging from the basic handset and service, to a package that also includes a docking station/speaker, case and higher capacity memory card.

So how well is Nokia’s Comes With Music selling? The customer rep I questioned said that it was generating quite a bit of interest, and that, unsurprisingly, it was the pre-pay version that was selling best. After a bit more probing on my part, he did concede that the Comes With Music concept wasn’t something that all customers understood, but that those who did are helping to spread the word. As Nokia’s message percolates, our helpful rep expects sales to ramp up nicely as we approach Christmas.

Just as I was about to leave the store, I couldn’t resist asking about how well the Google phone was selling. Not too great, said the sales rep, especially compared to the iPhone 3G, which was still doing well. He’d personally sold 3-4 iPhones in the last few days but couldn’t be sure if he’d even shifted a single G1, although he did partially attribute that to T-Mobile’s more stringent customer credit checks. Of course, neither Google or T-Mobile have launched a UK-wide advertising blitz on anything like the scale of Apple or Nokia, and aside from one broken dummy unit on display, in-store advertising for the G1 in this particular Carphone Warehouse was non-existent, which perhaps also tells its own story.

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Nokia launches 5800 XpressMusic touchscreen phone (formally known as the “Tube”)

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:23:35 +0000

At long last, Nokia has taken the wraps off its much anticipated entrance into the touchscreen smartphone space, post-iPhone of course.

The new device – dubbed 5800 XpressMusic – is, as the name suggests, being pitched as a music (and video) centric phone, and is to be the second handset to support the company’s all-you-can-eat music subscription service, Comes With Music, which also officially launched today. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nokia is also emphasizing the 5800’s media production and sharing capabilities, two areas where the company feels it competes strongly against Apple, especially since the iPhone lacks video recording functionality. On that note, the 5800 features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and is capable of 30 frames-per-second video playback and recording.

There’s also the now standard support for Nokia’s ‘Share on Ovi’ web service, which along with the ability to upload to Nokia’s own media sharing site, also supports uploading to Flickr and Facebook. Additionally, music play-lists can be shared via Bluetooth, although this feature will likely only be of real use to Comes With Music subscribers.

The 5800 has 8GB of memory (via a micro-SD card) “for up to 6000 tracks”, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and surround sound stereo speakers, which Nokia boasts as loud!

In terms of display, the 5800 features a 3.2-inch touchscreen, 640 x 360 pixels in dimension and supporting 16 million colors. The device also features tactile feedback, which could make typing on the virtual numeric or QWERTY keyboard a little more usable, and there’s a proximity sensor, which from what we understand, locks and dims the device’s screen when its close to your ear to avoid accidental key presses and to save power.

From watching the demo videos published by Nokia and others, the 5800 XpressMusic is a stylish looking device, though thicker than the iPhone, an inevitable comparison. The new UI (part of S60 5th edition) is fairly polished, with specific touch features such as a dedicated ‘Media Bar’ that can be invoked at any time via a touch sensitive button that lives just above the screen. Overall, however, the touchscreen overhaul has plenty in common with previous versions of S60, which depending on your preference might be a good or bad thing.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic: Music Player from smashpOp on Vimeo.

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Nokia’s all-you-can-eat music service to land in UK first

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:05:51 +0000

No carrier support

Nokia’s all-you-can-eat music subscription service, will launch first in the UK next month, but the real news is the lack of carrier support. Instead, Comes With Music will be offered on a pre-pay handset only, the slightly dated Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, sold exclusively through Carphone Warehouse, the same retail chain who in conjunction with 02 have partnered with Apple to sell the iPhone.

Described by Nokia as “a revolutionary way for people to discover and enjoy music”. Comes With Music gives those who purchase a supported handset “unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalog with the ability to keep all downloaded tracks even after the year is over.” It’s seen as a direct attempt by the world’s number one handset maker to take on Apple’s iPhone/iTunes music service – ironic considering that both offerings will now compete for shelf space at the Carphone Warehouse during the busy Christmas period.

As we’ve noted before, Nokia’s aggressive moves into the ’services’ space was bound to hit a nerve with carriers who offer their own competing products. According to The Guardian newspaper (via mocoNews), Nokia has touted Comes With Music to all five UK networks, none of whom have found it attractive enough to bite. So far at least.

The major labels on the other hand seem more than willing to play ball. To date, Universal Music, Sony BMG and Warner Music have already signed on, and Nokia is hopeful that EMI will also soon join.

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Warner Music jumps on-board Nokia’s all-you-can-eat music plan

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:07:06 +0000

Three down, one to go

Nokia continues to cozy up to the music industry, announcing today that Warner Music has signed onto ‘Comes With Music’, the company’s all-you-can-eat music subscription plan. The major recording label becomes the third of the Big Four to have agreed a partnership with Nokia, following earlier deals with Universal Music and Sony BMG. The remaining major holdout is EMI.

Announced last December at the annual Nokia World conference, “Comes With Music” will enable customers to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to “millions of tracks”, and – rather surprisingly – get to keep any downloaded tracks once the twelve month subscription period ends. The only way to then continue accessing the service, however, is to purchase a new “Comes With Music” device (see our follow-up report).

In a press release, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music Group’s Chairman and CEO described ‘Comes With Music’ as “the first global initiative to fundamentally align the interests of music companies with telecommunications companies… Through this innovative service and business model, all parties are equally driven to create the best and most comprehensive music offering designed to meet the ever-expanding consumer appetite for music and music-enabled devices.”

While Nokia’s Tero Ojanperä says: “Comes With Music enables people to access great content, provides artists to wider exposure with new and existing fans, and creates new revenue for all stakeholders.”

On the issue of exactly how much new revenue Nokia is generating for the major labels, the company isn’t giving much away – and why would it? Amid reports that Nokia may actually be prepared to lose money on ‘Comes With Music’ in return for securing the major labels’ support and aggressively entering this new market, the company’s music boss Liz Schimel told Reuters back in April: “I can assure you that we are looking out for everyone’s interests in creating these new business models, including our own.”

‘Comes With Music’ is expected to launch in the second half of 2008 on a range of Nokia devices in “selected territories”.

Nokia also announced today that Warner Music is making its catalog available to the Nokia Music Store, the company’s “over-the-air” and PC-based a la carte music download service (see last100 coverage).

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