Vodafone UK launches "Vodafone Music" – it's a bit like iTunes

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Vodafone has announced that is new “Vodafone Music” service is now live in the UK, allowing its mobile customers to buy and download songs from the Vodafone live! Music Shop.

The service features a new user-friendly interface which includes a smart search allowing users to find music based on track name, artist, album, or genre; free 30-second previews of songs, album art, and improved charts listing new releases and top downloads…

Mobile phone industry regulator sniffs suspiciously at premium-rate downloads, plans to probe

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UK premium-rate mobile phone services, offering ringtones, downloads and games, are going to have to watch their backs. Industry regulator, PhonepayPlus (which sounds very much a premium-rate mobile service itself if you ask me), has said that it will be closely examining the practices of these service providers following a surge in complaints from consumers…

Vodafone goes live with MusicStation mobile music service

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We knew it was coming, but this morning Vodafone went live with MusicStation, the £1.99-a-week music subscription service from Omnifone. They even persuaded Girls Aloud to totter along to the launch and grab the first downloads through the service.

It’s launching with 1.2 million tracks available, as well as live charts, personalised music news, and social networking features letting users sign up friends and share their playlists.

Opinion: Why music geeks won't replace their iPod with a mobile phone just yet

stu-col.jpgStuart Dredge writes…

We’re all set for Apple’s latest product launch tomorrow, with rumours about new iPods at fever pitch. There’ll be fat Nanos, touchscreen iPods with DAB tuners inside, and a Winehouse-branded model with a plug-in beehive speaker and trackmarks on the side. Well, some of those.

The point is that people are genuinely excited about the prospect of all-new iPods. Wasn’t the iPhone supposed to kill this sort of thing off? MP3 players, I mean. What with the iPhone, Nokia’s new Music Store, and Sony Ericsson’s success with its Walkman phones, you’d think standalone MP3 players were old news.

Will Nokia launch an iTunes-rivalling online music service?

nokia_music_download_service.gifNokia could well be gearing up to launch its own mobile music download service, if recent reports in Fortune Magazine are proved correct.

Sources close to Nokia’s CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, claim that the new worldwide service could launch on 29th August at a London event featuring live music at the Ministry of Sound nightclub.

They also claim that the system would work much like iTunes, offering downloads of music tracks to a PC for transferring to mobile devices – either Nokia’s own, or others via DRM software.