As we still wait for Nokia to launch their Comes With Music Service here in India which has just sprouted in the UK made me feel that for getting your favourite music on mobile we would have to wait a little more. But when I took a little stroll down with the Motorola’s Music Service my perception was completely changed. I really liked the interface although still browser based and requires IE 6 + cause of the DRM protected media but still it harboured a huge collection which was more focused on the Indian segment. Yes, there you can find a whole lot of Indian Music Collection and that too at a very good price.

What’s the Catch?

There are minor off sides about the service which are cloudy as to how long is the Licence going to last or the times you can copy a song but the good part is that the music you download is yours to keep and you can transfer it to any portable media, thus you don’t need to purchase any particular device like the situation is at present with the Comes With Music service. Also a great thing about Motorola’s Music service is that, it’s not about music, rather it also has Videos. But one thing that lacks is the usage via a mobile device, so in a way it’s actually buying a virtual music CD rather than having your music straight on your mobile, which totally sucks. This is the part where Nokia has been capitalizing over the past year with the launch of its Ovi Service. But I must say at present Motorola is sure Rocking.

I had an opportunity to experience Nokia’s Comes With Music Service and to be honest it was far better than Motorola’s as it was more easy and coupled with the Nokia Music Client much more user friendly, just hope they hook it up with the Nokia Account or the Share Ovi one. Coming to the ground reality now, Motorola is up and live in India but Comes With Music is not, thus leaving us with no choice. So, if you like the idea of buying online music then do check this service out. There are a few Diwali giveaways as well. Following is a little screen capture of Nokia’s Comes With Music Service (you can compare it with the Motorola’s Music Service).

There are still a lot of questions unanswered but I have mailed the Moto Music support team to about them and we should get a response soon. To know more about their music service click here>> More detailed report of the service is coming in my future posts, so just stick tight. Also I have written to the Nokia Music Team to know when will Comes With Music go live in India, so will update you as soon as I get a response.

A reminder to all that we are having an Apple iPhone contest over at our forums. All you have to do is just register and your name will be included in the Draw. Click Here to Register>>

But there is a dark side to the service as well.
Things that if tweaked can do wonders to this service.

(what the service offers in a quick screen capture)

• It is only available to people who BUY A NEW device that supports Comes With Music service.

• Only a few devices are Compatible (Yes, No support for Nseries phones leaving aside N95 8GB). What is Nokia thinking? The site only displays Nokia 5310 and N95 8GB. I’m sure the new 5800 will come up soon. But Not N96, N85 or the likes?

• It is only for one year. No renewal of subscription at present. In case you want to get the service again, you would have to buy a new device. You also cannot get the subscription separately. This is simply crazy.

• Some Artist are Missing.

• Windows-DRM protected Media. No soup for Mac lovers, which would not target the Mac crowd altogether. What a waste of the service here.

(A simple search I did which brought up punjabi songs as well )

Conclusion: Completely Avoidable At Present but good to experiment around with if you want to.

(My Tweaked Version Of NokiaviNe – click picture for larger view)

Waiting for the service to hit the beta labs, I occasionally chat with my friend Cj about the various issues with the service and lately when Nokia was busy with their chain reaction of My Phone Knows Everything, it occurred to me that why not NokiaviNe be tweaked to handle more data that is Geo-tagged. At present the only device to handle an active GPS for continuous run is E71 which outlasted a thunderous 14 hours non-stop. So in a way this service will push the technology world to further heights and I’m sure we will witness more improvement in terms to battery stand-by time, active time that will support a whole lot of different applications NokiaviNe being one of them. Picture above is what I had in mind one fine morning and thus i spent a few hours making it. Its a screenshot of what I would want to Geo tag and incorporate in my viNe (yes, from messages to calls to email to internet to everything. And the viNe should also have a public – private listing as well ). Although we see different leaves coming out of the vine with different messages, but we only see three of these features incorporated in the alpha version viz. Pictures, Videos & Music. Lets hope the beta version more of these. Also, Lets see if Nokia and push this application a little further.

So, will you give Nokia viNe a try? Want to know more about Nokia viNe – Click Here>>

Well, yes the Music PC Client by Nokia to have access to its Music services has graduated from the beta labs with a lot of bug fixes and is now in v1.0 for all of you to download and enjoy your music. A lot of work has been done with the feedback coming in from all of us at the beta labs blogs and thanks Tommi, most of the comments have been incorporated in this new client.

CAUTION: The Feedback for the new version over at beta labs is not that pleasing, so download at your own risk. My buddy Chaplin will tell you why

If you guys had not previously installed the Beta application can download the first full version of Nokia Music from this link:

http://music.nokia.com/download

If you had already then you will be receiving an automatic update to version 1.0 during the coming week.

Those of you in the United Kingdom you will soon be able to experience Nokia Music as part of the great Comes With Music concept that launches in the next few weeks. If you buy a Comes With Music device you will be able to download all the music you want from the Nokia Music Store for a whole year. And unlike some other subscription deals you get to keep the music after the year is over. So its gonna be a tough times for iTunes in the coming days i guess . But what about other countries?