Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia has launched its first touchscreen phone and a new music download service, in an effort to see off the threat posed by Apple’s iPhone.
The song download service, Comes with Music, gives Nokia phone users a year's access to unlimited downloads of more than a million songs, which they can keep once the year is up.
"Comes with Music sets a precedent for consumer value and convenience that the rest of the digital entertainment industry is already copying," said Tero Ojanperä, Nokia's executive vice president.
"Trying out a music recommendation is spontaneous, as customers can download songs without worrying about the cost of an album or a track."
Nokia also unveiled a touchscreen handset designed specifically for use with the Comes with Music service. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has 8GB of memory for storing up to 6,000 songs, an FM radio, and a 3.2-megapixel camera capable of taking still photos and recording video.
There's also a "media bar", activated by tapping the 3.2in touchscreen, that provides a drop-down menu for direct access to a user's music library and photos, as well as one-touch access to the internet.
A "contacts bar" on the phone's home screen allows users to choose four of their favourite contacts and get one-touch access to all of the text messages, emails, and phone calls made by that person.
"The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic turns a 'user interface' into a 'human interface' by truly putting people first," said Jo Harlow, vice president of Nokia.
"With this device, we've set out to connect people through the one thing we all feel a universal connection to – music."
The launch of Comes with Music is seen as an attempt to fend off the challenge posed by Apple's iPhone, which allows users to download songs from the iTunes music store whenever they are in a wireless internet zone.
Last week, Sony Ericsson announced a similar service, PlayNow Plus, which offers unlimited music downloads for a set monthly fee. The service will launch in Sweden first, before being rolled out in the UK early next year. Researchers believe that the introduction of these unlimited download services could result in British phone users downloading about 2.1 billion songs a year.
Analysts at TNS Technology said that the launch of "all-you-can-eat" music downloads would reduce illegal file-sharing of songs, and contribute to the ongoing decline of CD sales, as people opt for the instant gratification of immediate downloads rather than visiting a shop.
"Comes with Music could potentially bring free music to millions of consumers, radically changing the music industry, and offering a significant threat to Apple's dominance," said David MacQueen, an analyst with Strategy Analytics.
"In a market where price and selection are so much more important than brand to consumers, Apple cannot count on retaining users when competing with an offering which seems free to the end user," he added.
