Nokia To Use Microsoft Digital Music Software 180
BCMM writes "From an article on Reuters: 'The world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and software giant Microsoft struck a deal on Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music on-line and play it back on their handsets ... Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets.'" (The BBC covers the deal as well.)
"The articles don't mention what sort of DRM or licensing will be involved." jfanning writes "Two new Series 60 phones were also announced that ship soon and support WMA, the 6680 and 6681. I haven't seen it mentioned clearly yet, but also the Media Transfer Protocol has been licenced, so that could mean the phone will show up as a media device in Windows Media 10." jfanning mentions also that Nokia has licensed the Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync protocol for business phones.
Re:Because after all, we all love... (Score:4, Informative)
Even if you stuck a headphone jack into your phone to get around the shitty piezo speaker problem, consider that if you actually plan to use your phone for something (oh, I don't know, say, talking on it?), why would you want to wear down its battery by playing music on it?
Yeah, actually, not only would i, but I've been screaming for the ability to do so for years. Now I can stick a miniSD card into my cell phone and have a small "emergency supply" of music on hand whenever I need it, without having to carry around an extra gadget. And not only can I play Beethoven's 9th in 32kb mono wma, but also in 192kb vorbis, 128kb wma, and anything in between if i so choose. Not to mention the ability to put videos on my phone--now if i can just get tivo to let me store as wm10 content i can watch 24 on my phone as well.
As for the charging, the engineers made a very wise decision in allowing the phone to charge over USB, so when i hook it up to sync to my desktop, its also charging for me, which means I only have to carry around a small USB cable instead of a whole charger, and i can charge off anything with a USB port, even if the phone's software isn't installed on the computer. hell, i can even charge off linux.
(for those wondering, the phone in question is the Audiovox SMT5600, not the nokias mentioned above, but the same principles apply.)
Re:Where's my stream? (Score:3, Informative)
As much as they'd like to be able to eventually sell this service, I'm not sure most cell phone companies want you to stay on the phone _quite_ so constantly. Their networks depend on the fact that not everyone is using their phones at once. A single cell tower can support only so many callers. Ever try to make a call in an area where you know you can get service and not be able to connect? Until that problem goes away, you won't see the streaming service... not from the carriers, anyway.
They are working on it, of course... eventually, as long as folks lobbying against cell tower density don't get their way...
WMP10 is for PC - NOT phone (Score:5, Informative)
It does not say that Nokia is licensing Windows Media Player for phones, rather the technologies underneath, such as WMA, for achieving better interoperability with the PC. WMP10 is used as the PC frontend for the music solution they just launched.
There's going to be "support for Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) digital rights management and the MPEG Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) family of codecs in Windows Media Player via a plug-in" too to support the service.
Re:The Meme to Propogate (Score:1, Informative)
The playback quality is just as good as with any flash based MP3 player when using headphones.