When it comes to digital music, it seems that everyone and his dog wants a bite of the Apple.
Not surprising really considering the phenomenal success story that is iTunes. As of June 2008, the iTunes store has sold over five billion songs, accounting for more than 70% of worldwide online digital music sales.
One of the companies looking for a share of this musical action is Nokia.
The Finnish phone giant has launched Nokia Comes With Music whereby you buy a phone on either Pay As You Go or a contract and it comes with unlimited access to two million music tracks.
Which means you can download music till your heart's content without paying an extra penny.
First of all you'll need a Comes With Music compatible phone - and at the moment that's either a Nokia 5310 or a Nokia N95 8GB.
The Nokia 5310 is available on Pay As You Go for £129.95 when bought with £10 airtime on Orange) or you can get it free if you sign up to an 18 month contract (then you will pay £25 a month and get 200 inclusive minutes and unlimited texts as well as free music downloads.
If you want a Nokia N95 8GB Comes With Music you will have to go down the contract route. The handset will cost you £49.99 if you agree to an 18 month contract ( £35 a month, 600 inclusive minutes and unlimited texts a month plus free music downloads) or £169.99 on a 12 month contract (£35 a month, 350 inclusive minutes and 200 texts plus unlimited music downloads).
If you opt for a contract phone, then your access to the Comes With Music service will last as long as the contract does. If you prefer to Pay As You Go, you get 12 months access to unlimited music downloads.
The good news is that once your subscription to Comes With Music you get to keep all of the music that you have downloaded.
So what's the catch I hear you ask?
The first one is that you can only download the songs via one nominated PC and then transfer them to one nominated Nokia phone. And you can only listen to them via your PC and Nokia phone too.
If you want to burn or copy songs you will need to pay for permission to do so by visiting the Nokia Music Store.
You can change your registered PC (it doesn't work with Apple computers) once every three months up to two years from the end of your subscription. After those two years, access to your downloaded music will last as long as you are still using the last registered phone and PC.
The second catch is the word "unlimited". It's subject to the usual reasonable use and non-commercial use clauses.
But generally speaking, music fans should get more than their money's worth with the Comes With Music offer from Nokia - and it could well prove to be a game changer as far as the music download industry is concerned.
In truth though, neither is a big catch and you can't help thinking that if Nokia roll out the service with Comes With Music versions of its latest phones - like the Nokia N96 for example - it could pose a serious threat to the Apple iPhone. For now though, if you spend a lot on music downloads and are in the market for a new phone, Nokia's Come With Music could well be music to your ears.
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