Nokia Music lands on Windows 8 and Windows RT devices

Nokia has launched its music streaming service Nokia Music as an app for Windows 8 and Windows RT devices. You can now install the Nokia Music app on your Windows devices and listen to hundreds of tracks through it.

The service was originally launched for the Windows Mobile platform back in September and had met with a certain amount of success. On the mobile platform as well on Windows devices, Nokia offers “mixes”, a specially cooked up playlist by the app put together genre-wise.

Now  on Windows 8/ Windows RT

The app can even be used to play and queue your own collection of music. Whether you’re listening to the app’s mix or listening to your own library, Nokia Music will keep bombarding you with information regarding artistes, which includes trivia about them, lyrics to the song you’re currently listening to, image galleries and more. It will also enable discovery of more tracks.

You can also type in a name of one or more artistes of your preference and Nokia Music will design a special play list that will weave the artistes with other similar ones. This not only aids music discovery but also gives users a good listening experience. In case you end up liking one or more of the mixes, you can download and listen to it even if you don’t have an Internet connection.

But here’s the catch. You will need to shell out a monthly subscription charge of $3.99 (Rs 220 approx) to access all of Nokia Music’s services. You can choose to have a free trial, but to get access to features like unlimited skips and higher quality audio stream, you need a Nokia Music+ subscription. If you already have the subscription via your Nokia phone, all you need to do is log in with your credentials onto the Windows app.

We tried to access the Nokia Music app on the Indian version of the Windows Store unsuccessfully. It looks like the app is still in the process of being rolled out worldwide.

The service's USP is its genre based mixes

Late last year in November, Nokia had announced that it was joining hands with Vodafone in India to improve the Nokia Music service. Vodafone India customers using the music service on their Nokia feature phones and Asha smartphones can renew their subscriptions via their Vodafone accounts and download songs and albums from the Nokia Music Store.

Renewal subscriptions for the Nokia Music Store are available for three durations – 7 days for Rs 50, 30 days for Rs 99, and 90 days for Rs 250. Taxes and data charges as applicable will be levied separately. With this integration, Vodafone India customers can pay for the renewal as part of their monthly phone bills or have the amount debited from their pre-paid balance.

As per an official statement, the Nokia Music Store was the first independent music store in India to offer integrated operator billing, along with billing via credit cards and vouchers. This marks a big step forward towards broadening monetisation and strengthening the music ecosystem in India.