After shutting down its Ovi Music subscription service in early 2011, Nokia is re-playing the tune. On Tuesday, the Espoo, Finland company announced Nokia Music for Lumia devices in the United States, a free music streaming service with no registration required. Owners of the Microsoft Windows Phone Lumia handsets simply download the Nokia Music app from the Windows Phone Marketplace to start streaming.
Nokia says that 150 playlists “that are curated and kept up to date by an expert team of US based musicologists” are available, comprised of a wide variety of music genres, from classical to house dance music. Additionally, playlists created by Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga and Rihanna, as well as other well-known performers, are available. But Nokia Music isn’t just made up of the service-provided playlists. Personalized playlists can be built using the “create” function, which access millions of songs in Nokia’s music library.
The free service should appeal to music lovers that own a Lumia device in the US. Nokia Music doesn’t contain any advertising, so music will be uninterrupted. And the playlists can be accessed offline, so tunes can be enjoyed without using up precious mobile broadband. A “gig finder” feature also offers information on local music events and the app ties in to Nokia’s digital music store where users can purchase MP3 songs or albums.
Nokia Music is likely the first of many new announcements coming from the company. Tomorrow, Nokia has a scheduled press event in New York City, where it is widely expected to debut handsets designed to run Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.
