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.
Motorola & Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
Somehow I doubt it will be easier than iTunes, and since Motorola allready teamed up with Apple's iTunes...
Where's my stream? (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Crashes.... (Score:4, Interesting)
T-Mobile is a type of NETWORK
Sheessh - If you're gonna make up random things to get FP, at least make them vaugley techincally correct.
Anyway... As for Nokia - The rest of my devices running MS stuff crash - Why Oh Why would I want my phone to crash as well??? I can just see it now. "Hello Bob, I need you to look up error code 61023... Bob? Bob?... damn - my phone's rebooted."
Missing Sync (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just Microsoft doing this (Score:5, Interesting)
The dirt on the Motorola E1060 - Engadget - www.engadget.com [engadget.com]
The Meme to Propogate (Score:2, Interesting)
Nokia recognized that phones are not exactly what you'd call "high-end audiophile" equipment. Further, there is a lot of downward price pressure on phone manufacturing costs (mostly from the service providers, whose heavy discounts on phone handsets are easily noticed on their books by Wall Street analysts). Hence, you're not likely to see quality audio coming out of a phone soon, since few organizations will be willing to pay the extra engineering and manufacturing costs to put that quality into the phone in the first place.
So, realizing this, Nokia understood that putting in support for AAC or MP3-Pro or Ogg Vorbis or any other high-quality audio standard was fairly pointless, since phones are physically incapable of reproducing their dynamic range. They wanted an audio format equal to the platform on which it would be running. Hence, Windows Media.
Everyone knows Windows Media looks and sounds very poor but, on a cheap phone with low-quality sound hardware, you'd never be able to tell. So Windows Media is the obvious choice for "toy" audio applications.
If you want quality audio, however, then you'll have to get a decent piece of audio hardware that supports quality codecs.
Schwab
Re:Duh (Score:1, Interesting)
You still listen to radio?
Given the choice between Clear Channel's playlist and my own, I think I'll take mine, but thanks anyway.
Re:Where's my stream? (Score:3, Interesting)
or just edge.
and just the phone if you do some creative coding(s60 is open so far after all for you, me and anybody to write on).
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Because after all, we all love... (Score:4, Interesting)
And regarding batteries, i have a charger at home and at work. Most of my friends have nokia phone chargers. If listening to music through my phone reduces the battery to, say, 5 hours, then i probably won't care.
I find it really bizarre how the slashdot community has so many neo-luddites. Just because this technology is not perfectly set up for how YOU listen to music, or how YOU use your phone, it doesn't mean it isn't good for others. Sometimes i get the feeling that my grandparents are more adaptable to change than the average slashdot reader.
Re:Missing SynCE (Score:3, Interesting)
...so run Ogg on your series-60 (Score:3, Interesting)
I'M serious. (Score:4, Interesting)
That got modded "funny" but I'm dead serious.
I've been thinking about switching to a non-Nokia phone for my next cellphone upgrade. This clinches it.
It's bad enough that some of the existing phones are subject to attack over bluetooth. Can you imagine them with Microsoft code inside?
Maybe Microsoft WILL clean up their act here. But even if they do, given their track record I won't be able to trust them.
Finally Activesync for nokia! (Score:3, Interesting)