Omnifone Unveils Rival to iPhone, iTunes
76319
Omnifone, a British mobile music company, is unveiling a new music service Monday aimed at cell phone users who crave music while on the go, in the first of what is expected to be many challenges against Apple ...Comment
387992
Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world&#39;s top mobile  phone maker, unveiled on Wednesday a new online music store,  new top-end handsets and a global gaming service as it takes on  recent rival U.S. rival Apple .
716716
Microsoft's MSN Music store is by far the most capable rival to Apple's iTunes Music Store, even if it doesn't yet surpass it.-Rob Pegoraro
358520
(InfoWorld) - Omnifone wants to put a new face on mobile phone music downloads with its MusicStation service. Built around a software client that runs on a wide range of phones, MusicStation links to a subscription-based online music store and allows users to build and share playlists, follow news about their favorite bands, and play and download music on their mobile for a fixed weekly fee, said CEO Rob Lewis. The MusicStation application lets subscribers download music over the air using GPRSÂ or 3G mobile networks. The software runs on phones with Symbian's OS or other phones that can run Java applets. Omnifone, based in London, hopes to challenge Apple's forthcoming iPhone, offering users a similarly easy-to-use music service from around three-quarters of phones currently sold, but giving network operators a slice of the revenue, Lewis said. The MusicStation platform charges music directly to the customer's phone bill and doesn't require customers to use a credit card. The company has reached agreements with 23 mobile network operators to use its music download platform to sell music from major record labels, including Universal Music Group. It has also partnered with Musiwave, a mobile music services provider that's part of Openwave Systems, to distribute the MusicStation system. Scandinavian operator Telenor and South African network VodacomÂ are scheduled to launch MusicStation first, by June. Omnifone will name four more customers in Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region by June, it said at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. Omnifone said consumers don't need a computer or broadband Internet connection to use MusicStation, although downloaded music can also be transferred to a user's computer with a premium subscription. MusicStation is priced as a weekly subscription; in the U.K., the price will be Â£1.99 per week ($3.87) or â¬2.99 ($5.82) throughout Europe. The premium service will be Â£2.99 in the U.K. and â¬3.99 throughout Europe. The platform supports DRM (digital rights management) technology, which limits how the music can be used, and tracks will be sold in the eAAC+ (enhanced advanced audio coding), Omnifone said. On 3G networks, they are encoded at 48Kbps, and on GPRS networks at 32Kbps to shorten download times. On phones with limited memory capacity, MusicStation monitors which tracks are played most often and deletes little-used tracks to free up space. They can, however, be downloaded again later as long as the user remains a subscriber, Lewis said. Peter Sayer in Paris, contributed to this report. Â
143412
Vodafone Group Plc  unveiled a  range of new handsets and services for the key Christmas period  on Monday including an exclusive music service offering  unlimited tracks, to challenge the iPhone in Britain.
627352
Omnifone, a British mobile music company, will unveil a new music service Monday aimed at cell phone users who crave music while on the go, in the first of what is expected to be many challenges against Apple ...Comment
673859
(InfoWorld) - So much for Apple Inc. raising the bar in the mobile phone industry. Since Apple announced it would soon start selling a combined music player and mobile device called the iPhone, industry experts have predicted that competing cell phone makers would rise to the challenge and start producing equally exciting phones. They may yet do that, but so far they haven't. I took a quick stroll around the show floor of the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona checking out the music phones from some of the biggest handset makers out there to see if anything might compare to the hype aroundÂ expectations for the iPhone. Apple is known for great hardware designs and simple, intuitive user interfaces. While I saw a dizzying array of form factors and a multitude of user interface styles, I was unimpressed with the hardware I saw and downright confounded by the complexity of all the user interfaces. My examinations were quick -- the show floor is incredibly crowded and hot, so sometimes it took some sharp elbows to even get to touch a phone. I took a brief look at the overall form factor of the phones and then did some navigating around the music player. I started out at the Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB booth, perhaps because I know the company has been pushing its Walkman handsets. The W880 is a really nice looking phone. It's incredibly thin and has unusual raised keys that work nicely. Sony Ericsson gets high marks for the hardware form factor on this one, but the software user interface was a different story. I never did manage to find the music player from the home screen. Ultimately, I just moved along to another phone in the display area that was already running the music player. I had a similar navigation problem on Nokia Corp.'s 5200 music phone. From the home screen, I clicked on an icon with a music note in it, which seemed a logical place to launch the music player. But that took me to a music-related game. I scrolled and scrolled through a horizontal bar of icons but didn't find a music player there. Then I noticed that floating in the middle of the screen were two long bars: one for the music player and one for the calendar. That threw me -- of all phone functions, why were the music player and calendar the only two to be presented that way? At least Nokia had loaded the demonstration phones with music. Some of the other handsets I tried out, such as the Sony Ericsson one, had just one song on them. That makes it difficult to get a feel for navigating around the music player. I don't love the form factor of the 5200 but I think some people might. It's sporty, in white and bright red, and a shape reminiscent of Motorola Inc.'s PEBL phones. It slides open. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s SG HF300 "Ultramusic" was next up. I couldn't help but be struck by the cool design. One side of the phone is nearly all screen; the flip side has a keypad for dialing the phone. I never managed to figure out how to use the control panel on the music player side of the phone. It looks like the iPod's but square. I don't have an iPod so maybe iPod users can easily figure it out. If you're not an iPod user -- and you may not be if you're in the market for a music phone -- the SG HF300 might require a steep learning curve. Motorola was next in line. I'm probably least impressed with the Z8 than any of the others. I think the design is clunky and looks and feels like a slider phone from a couple of years ago. For the innovator of the thin phone, Motorola should have done better with the Z8's size. I found it difficult to figure out which buttons corresponded with the words at the bottom of the screen so even hitting "back" proved difficult initially. Then, when looking for the music player application, I suddenly found an error message on the screen and the phone froze. Not a great sign. My final stop was Neonode AB, a Swedish company that has been touting its music phone, particularly its touch screen. The device is in a category of its own and is very un-phone like. About the size of a business card, though not as thin, its touch screen definitely requires training to use. I would have never been able to figure it out without instruction. Users sweep up along the home screen within three columns. The first opens a navigation page with icons for functions such as the music player, calendar and calculator. The middle column opens a touch pad for dialing calls. And the final column opens a tools menu. Sweeping left along the screen goes back a page and sweeping right opens a function that is highlighted. When presented with a list such as albums, you touch the item to highlight it and then touch the middle of the screen to open. Sound confusing? It was. Still, I'm not panning it. It may require a bit of direction and practice but I think it'd be pretty easy to get the hang of how it works. While the small size was attractive, it also meant that it felt a bit designed for a child. Most adults have fingertips that are bigger than the icons on the screen. Overall, I was largely underwhelmed with my experiences. But there's time -- Apple only just announced the iPhone and its competitors haven't really had time to respond. Also, my search was by no means exhaustive. For example, I didn't make it to LG Electronics Inc., which recently unveiled a phone, the KE850, that is being compared to the iPhone. Even at the booths I visited, I chose to look at the phone that appeared to me to be the most focused on music but that may not be the one the manufacturer would direct me to and other models may compare more directly with the iPhone. And finally, I'm the first to admit my exercise was a bit silly given that I've never even seen an iPhone. But such is the power of the Apple marketing machine.
448198
Reg review Mobile phone styling comes to the MP3 world
333262
A British mobile music company fields a music-to-go service for cell phones -- the first of many likely challenges to Apple's iPhone and iTunes Store. By the Associated Press.
60383
Looking to compete with the likes of Symbian and Microsoft, PalmSource is unveiling its new operating system geared specifically for the creation of smartphones.
24894
Vodafone is in talks with Apple to  launch the U.S. firm's iPhone combined music player and  telephone in Europe, and talks partly hinge on volume  guarantees and subsidies, a Dutch magazine reported.
762482
Microsoft today unveiled details of its highly anticipated Zune media player in the latest bid to rival Apple's iTunes/iPod combination.
55408
Baby steps Hands on I'll admit it. I'm an unashamed fan of the iPhone. I had an unlocked device in the UK running on my cheapskate Vodafone tariff before November's official launch.â¦
501675
Nokia is making moves on Apple in more ways than one. While its latest rendition of the N95 mobile device debuted as a so-called iPhone killer, its Ovi Internet services are launching as a formidable iTunes competitor.
582777
1+(smarterThanYou) writes &quot;Forbes.com has an article with updates on the previous Slashdot story on the Motorola/Apple iTunes compatible mobile phone.
443770
Nokia, the world&#39;s leading maker of mobile phones, unveiled on Wednesday a new digital music shop designed to loosen the grip of Apple&#39;s iTunes on downloads.
29172
âThe phone is so sleek and thin,â reports David Pogue (New York Times) in his review of iPhone, that âit makes Treos and Blackberrys look obese.â And the software transcends. âItâs fast, beautiful, menu-free, and dead simple to operate.â If you need âto answer a call, you can tap Answer on the screen, or pinch the microscopic microphone bulge on the white earbud cord. Either way, music or video playback pauses until you hang up.â As for email, itâs âfantastic. Incoming messages are fully formatted, complete with graphics; you can even open (but not edit) Word, Excel and PDF documents.â And âthe Web browser,â he points out, âis the real dazzler.â No âstripped down, claustrophobic My First Cellphone Browser; you get full Web layouts, fonts and all, shrunk to fit the screen. You scroll with a fingertip â much faster than scroll bars. You can double-tap to enlarge a block of text for reading, or rotate the screen 90 degrees, which rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view.â In short, Pogue calls the iPhone, âthe most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years.â