…at least year to date.
OK, everybody has their touch screen, icon driven, 3G-iPhony, “me too” device, but Nokia introduced the coolest phone of the year today. Made of carbon fiber, titanium, polished glass and stainless steel, this 3G device has a 3.2 MegaPixel camera and 4G of storage, and features a touch sensitive pad to switch from phone to clock display. But the 8800 Carbon Arte is a “lifestyle statement” at over $1600.
Filed under: cellular, James Quintana Pearce, mobile, Motorola, Nokia, Samusng
Nice piece in MocoNews by James Quintana Pearce today, “Motorola Doesn’t Need Another Hit Phone”. He argues that pundits who blame Motorola’s state on the lack of a hit phone are missing the point. Success in the industry has been driven by depth and variety in the product line, not a single hit phone.
Nokia today announced the latest member of the Prism Collection, the Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism, extending the fashion conscious product line. Featuring a crystal center key, and the diamond pattern keypad of the other Prism phones, the Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism is the product of Nokia’s partnership with designer Frédérique Daubal. Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism will be available in the first quarter of 2008, and the 3G phone features a 2 megapixel camera, 1 GB of internal memory and a music player with matching headset. The keypad is also user customizable into one of 49 different colors….
Filed under: Apple, EMI, iPhone, mobile, Music, Nokia, Sony, Sony BMG, Sony Ericsson, Universal, Vivendi, Warner Music
In a clear response to Nokia’s recent launch of a music portal with PC and mobile storefronts for purchasing and downloading tunes, Sony Ericsson has announced that it too will have a full-fledged music store for its customers by Q2 2008. S-E has always been able to sell tunes from the Sony BMG Music Entertainment, but has now reached agreement with the other three major labels (Universal Music Group (Vivendi), EMI Group PLC and Warner Music Group Corp). All of which means that Sony Ericsson customers will now be able to purchase the vast majority of the major label music that they can purchase through iTunes, Rhapsody, Nokia Music, etc.
The announcement yesterday was apparently timed to respond to both Nokia’s announcement last month, and the launch of the iPhone in Europe which takes place today.
…in the UK. Coming soon to a browser or N95 near you. Music from Nokia.
The AllAboutSymbian site reports the Nokia Music store, widely anticipated following the Nokia purchase of Loudeye last August. The company has cut deals with the 4 big labels and will be selling DRM’d tracks, initially only in the WMA format with other formats to come. The PC and mobile clients will interact to a limited extent and, and the PC client will support a plan for ‘all you can eat’ streaming of tracks (to be added to the mobile client later). Initially available on the N81 and N95 8G, you can expect that Nokia will soon incorporate the mobile client in many of their multimedia lines.
Looks like a solid offering to line up against iTunes + iPhone. It wil be interesting to see the rest of the industry respond.
Whoever is doing product placement marketing for Nokia deserves a bonus.
The top two music videos in the UK this week both feature the Nokia Prism 7900 prominently, most notably the SugaBabes “About You Now” which focuses on two Prisms repeatedly throughout the video. The other video is Shayne Ward’s “No U Hang Up” which opens with a shot of the Prism and then shows glimpses of it throughout the video. Sexy, trendy, Pop artists loving their phones…. You couldn’t ask for better placement…..
According to an article in the Wall St. Journal today, Motorola CEO Ed Zander told a group of business school students at the University of Chicago that Motorola had passed on a chance to to acquire GPS mapping company Navteq, recently acquired by Nokia. “That’s not our strategy,” Mr. Zander said. “We are not in the applications business.” referring to Nokia’s strategy of acquiring or developing wireless applications, mapping applications and music services.
News Corp., Sony Pictures and CNN have struck a deal to distribute video directly to Nokia handsets, sidestepping mobile carrier decks. The first phone supported will be the N95, already a multimedia superstar in the mobile market.
Read more at the Hollywood Reporter
The Nokia 7900 and 7500 are style conscious phones targeted to capture an audience just below the ‘cost is no object’ luxury crowd. The phones have a unique diamond shaped key design with matching etchings on the body, and sharp, clean lines all around.
The phones are full featured music players with MP3, AAC+ and WMA codecs and 1G of built in storage.
The new line can be found at its own microsite NokiaPrismcollection.com
Apple’s iPhone may open up both Hollywood and cellular carriers to the mobile phone as a platform for media. This is a very US centric piece from the NY Times which seems to credit Apple for advances in multimedia and technology that have been pioneered by Nokia, Motorola and others. The major US carriers are blamed for delays in advances, but Apple is riding in to the rescue…..
Please. The Apple iPhone will be far from the first mobile phone to incorporate Wifi, to use a touch screen, to play full length movies or incorporate Hollywood content in the phone. U.S. carriers are delaying the adoption of much of the technology that has already rolled out in Europe and Asia, but they’re also rolling out multimedia features the iPhone doesn’t have and are providing comprehensive multimedia offerings like live TV, combined with full featured music and video stores with one click ease.
Yes, it’s a beautiful phone. Yes it has some unique design elements, but come on people. At least look at what is already on the market before you crank out insipid articles about innovative features that aren’t actually innovative/
Nokia introduces a mid-range phone for multimedia use, with simple interface….Novel concept!
After years of treating Apple users as second class citizens, Nokia has released a Beta version of Nokia Media Transfer for Mac which enables its N-series mobile phones to transfer music, photos and other files to and from a Mac (including iTunes/iPhoto integration).
Podsanity 
