Nokia’s Ovi challenge to Apple
p2pnet news | Product News:- Nokia hasn’t merely thrown down the gauntlet to Apple – it’s hurled it, full force.
A little more than a year ago, the Finnish mobile maker splashed $60 million on Loudeye saying it planned to open a branded music service based on Loudeye’s platform and offerings.
So it’s no surprise to learn it’s just launched OVI (No, NOT Oy Vay) offering not only tunes through the Nokia Music Store, slated to open in Europe this Fall, but also GPS-keyed maps and revamped N-Gage gaming, accessible through PCs and mobiles.
Pointing out Ovi means ‘door’ in Finnish, Nokia says it’s opening it to expand from a focus on mobiles to offering a range of Internet services”.
Users will be able to plug into existing social network communities and content, as well as various Nokia services such as Nokia Maps, a navigation tool with maps and city guides.
The Nokia Music Store will be selling both full track streaming and corporate and indie downloads via PCs, “or directly from a compatible Nokia device, such as the Nokia N81 or Nokia N95 8GB multimedia,” and includes a “recommendation engine and genre-based instant playlists” so users will know what other people are up to.
But the company wants quite a bit more than the usual $1 traditionally demanded by other corporate music services.
In Europe, individual tracks will cost EUR 1.00 (about $1.35) and albums from EUR 10.00 (about $13.64), with a monthly subscription for PC streaming, also at EUR 10.00.
Additional features and languages will be launched in the first half of 2008, says Nokia, and games from companies such as Electronic Arts and Gameloft will be available through N-Gage, slated to be ready for download in November, says Nokia.
Apple has tremendous hype- and spin-power, which is what it takes to get the mainstream media excited, but, “The Nokia phones and Ovi service scored over the iPhone on at least three major counts,” says TechWorld, namely:
- The phones have 3G capability
- Nokia promised to welcome third party developers, and outlined a wider cross-platform services story.
- The PC interface to Ovi might, in fact, answer our call for a Symbian desktop.
Nokia already has touch-screen devices in its N series, (the Linux based N800 Internet tablet), and plans to bring a touch interface to the Symbian phones in its N series next year, says the story.
Also See:
$60 million on Loudeye -Nokia buys Loudeye for $60M, August 9, 2006
TechWorld – Nokia threatens to blow iPhone away, August 29, 2007
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