We’re really exited about the future of Nokia’s desktop music software. Much of our current effort is focused on a couple of important releases we have planned for the end of this year, but we’ve managed to find time to make a number of small enhancements in key areas , such as improving the basic device connection experience of Nokia Music.
For example, we’ve implemented ‘connection mode switching’. Most of Nokia owners will be aware of the multiple connection modes that users are offered when they plug their device into a computer. This causes a great deal of confusion for some people. In Nokia Music 1.3, if you select the wrong mode while the application is open, we now present a button that lets you switch to the right connection mode for music without having to go to the device.
The installation process is now ‘modularised’ to make the experience quicker for users who already have key components installed. For example, if users have already installed other Nokia desktop applications such as Ovi Suite, the overall download and install package could be as small as 9MB.
We’ve improved the artwork display performance for larger music libraries. You should see should see album covers appear more quickly in this version.
Devices such as the N96 and N97 have ‘multiple memory’ configurations. This means when we display the contents of a device we are showing a combined view from two different storage devices. After a small change, we can now cache these multiple memories more effectively. This means that when returning to the computer and plugging in your N97, you get a quicker view of the device contents.
You may have noticed that sometimes album art is not shown properly in the music player on your device. This is because although artwork embedded in the track can be transferred to the device, free-standing ‘folder art’ is not. Now when you import your music into the application, we will automatically embed any folder art so that it is visible on the device after transfer.
Finally, there are a couple of improvements that have been made to the ‘progress pane’ that shows transfer status. This progress pane now shows progress for CD ripping and CD burning as well as device transfer. You can also resize the panel and clear failed transfers more easily.
For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with Nokia Music, here are the other key enhancements in a nut shell:
- Play and organise your music seamlessly between your PC and phone
- Enjoy full integration with the Nokia Music Store and the Comes With Music™
- Transfer music and playlists to and from your device
- Burn songs to CD
- Rip your CDs straight to your device with ‘Rip n’ Go’
- Unlock the music potential of your mobile with the only PC jukebox optimised for Nokia owners
- Get Nokia Music Store recommendations based on your ‘now playing’ track
We hope to make some announcements soon about our future direction. In the meantime, let us know what you think about our recent update.
As a lover of music. Always have an overloaded 80GB Zune with me, but like to keep my N97 with a few tracks on incase of the battery running down on the Zune (Also own 1-off 1GB iPod shuffle, 1-0ff 20GB iPod 3G, 1-off iPod 60-GB Photo, 1-off iPod 80GB Video and have over 100GB of music on my PC which I sinc via iTunes and Zune).
The biggest stumbling block I see with Nokia Music is that although files converted to m4a in iTunes can be copied into the Zune library with no issues (All metadata and album art transfers with it), this can not be done with Nokia Music. Copying music into the Nokia Music library that has been cretaed in iTunes aften looses metadata and album art). Also te support for Album artist and/or Compilation is lacking in Nokia Music as these are vital for any user that has multi-disc albums (there are a lot of these about). To a degree this is more of a deal on the mobile music client on Nokia phones though as they only support Artist, Album, Tracck #, Track Title and album art. This needs expanding to support Album Artist and/or compilation.
Pitty these capabilities have not been addressed. Hopefully at some point in the future maybe.
Hi mbrett, although iTunes does not always store track art and metadata in a fully ID3-compliant way, we should be able to import all of this into the Nokia Music library without any problems. I’ll ask one of the team to look into this to see if iTunes is doing something different in certain cases that we need to catch.
As for compilations, we do fully support these but not with a separate flag like iTunes. Instead you need to make sure all the album metadata is correct (i.e. the Track Artist can be different but the Album Artist should be set to ‘Various Artists’). If this is the case compilation albums will appear in the ‘Albums’ filter as a single album. Multi-Disc albums are also supported if the ‘Disc #’ tag is populated.
The easiest way to sort this out is to retrieve the metadata using the song-recognition button on the album cover. This will populate compilation albums with the correct metadata (Album Artist, Disc #) so the album shows correctly.
Thanks for taking the time to post your feedback mbrett, it is much appreciated.
Still no support for podcasts?
Genres have always been the annoyance for me and the reason why I haven’t taken it on. I use iTunes on the PC and most of my genres either have custom titles or ones that don’t match the Nokia presets so 90% of my music becomes “unknown genre”.
It’s not a question of faulting Nokia, but if they want to make their devices useful with iTunes users, they need to work a solution.
Album art seems to have improved although it’s not 100%.
Also with multiple artist albums where in iTunes I enter each song artist by their respective tracks, and mark the whole album as a “Compilation”, this shows up in Nokia Music albums as separate albums per artist. Same thing even I add a single “album artist” such as “Various Artists”.
HI,
When all S40 devices will be supported by Nokia Music, even Nokia E51. Nokia PC Suite 7.1.30.9 has got the link to download Nokia Music PC application, whereas, Nokia Music does not support all the devices which are compatible with Nokia PC Suites
which is big hassle…….. SOme people in discussion forum of NOkia complains that they can’t use both Nokia Music and Nokia PC Suite at the same time, as NOkia Music needs phone to be connected in different mode….
Is Nokia Music still incompatible with 64-bit versions of Windows?
If it still isn’t compatible, do you have any idea when/if it will become compatible?
Or should I just wait until Ovi Suite 2 leaves beta testing?
I wish I could say I was impressed with this news, but it’s really rather depressing. Nokia Music was first demo’d in London at the Nokia Go Play event in August 2007, nearly 2 full years ago – the first public version of the software wasn’t made available until 10 months afterwards, and was then in early beta, available through Nokia’s Beta Labs. Even now that it’s graduated, there have not been any feature additions such as auto playlists or anything else that would make this able to be a realistic substitute for desktop music management, even now.
You say you’re serious about music, but Nokia, to date, cannot even put out a respectable desktop music client? Seriously? I hate to be so blunt, but nearly every music player on the map – Windows Media Player, iTunes, Winamp, MediaMonkey, and others, are vastly better, more full-featured, less resource-hungry, and simply perform better. When is this project planned to be competitive?
Mark — I’m not sure if you can speak about what happens on the device side of things, but since you talk about the “connection type” setting in your post … I wonder if Nokia is planning on addressing the way in that the device music library behaves? My experience so far with my new N97 and my iTunes library is that transferring music via Mass Storage mode gives me the fastest results, if I add together transfer time + library refresh time (I use the rather confusing but effective iTunes Agent program to sync in this mode). If I transfer tracks in Media Transfer mode, everything slows down considerably, negating the advantage of not having to refresh the library. Could you comment about any future plans in this area? In my opinion, improving on the desktop experience is only one half of the equation, if the device music player and library management are not addressed. Thanks in advance for your insight!
What’s the link to download Nokia Music 1.3?
I’m really trying hard with my E71 to get it to work like an ipod (1 ipod nano is lost and the dog chewed up the other) but I’m just not getting it right.
There is overlap between the music feature of the new Ovi suite and this new Music 1.3 program but neither hits the target.
The Ovi suite’s music function is basic but at least it can see my 4000+ tracks on my pc, usually accessed through itunes. But as it doesn’t support my itunes playlists, doesn’t have a genius feature, doesn’t distinguish between music and podcasts and doesn’t allow search by genre I can’t use it as an itunes substitute. Music 1.3, on the other hand appears to have a little more flexibility, but misses out on genius feature and …. oh yes track recognition. It has lumped all but a handful of the tracks into ‘unknown’, making it completely unusable.
The NY Nokia flagship store could not suggest some solution and they pointed out that the E71 isn’t positioned as a music phone. True, but if it says in the marketing blurb that it has music playback then it makes sense that there should be some usable interface to transfer music onto it.
I appreciate the communications that Nokia are putting out and I feel that they are trying to reach out to users. But the messages are many and varied and there doesn’t appear to be the resources to resolve the issues that users are raising. I have followed the thoughtful and selfless contributions by mbrett both here and on the Nokia beta labs site and I just wish that there were just as helpful people with the time to help on the other side of the Nokia window.
The link for downloading the app could also be given, assuming that the app is available for download already.
Can Nokia Music play M4A files, specifically Apple Lossless? The brochure/manual/online help say they do play M4A files – QUOTE “all subtypes and file extensions”. I bought the 5800 specifically because of this…and now it does not seem to play half my connection. WHATS THE BIG DEAL not including Lossless support??????????? It will take me days to convert specific albums or maybe I’ll just send the phone back (more likely). TOOLS!!!!
Generally, related to importing of iTunes tracks.
Nokia Music supports following file formats and metadata standards.
File format Meta-data format supported
AAC AAC-specific
MP3 ID3
WMA WMA-specific
3GP MP4
M4A MP4
ASF ASF-specific
WAV None
For the supported tracks, all the supported metadata will be automatically imported by Nokia Music and will also be transferred to the device (may depend on device type). iTunes does not always embed the metadata as per these standards and maintains the track information in its own database. Nokia Music cannot always read track information from this database. In this case, the tracks will be imported with metadata missing. This can be rectified by updating metadata using song recognition button, which will be visible on the Artwork on mouse hover.
For compilation albums, Nokia Music relies on Album Artist value to group track as a single album. If this value is missing, then all tracks will appear as a separate album. To solve this problem, either update the metadata using song recognition button on the album cover or set Album artist value for these tracks to “Various Artist”.
@OlDer
Unfortunately not at this point, but we are considering Podcasts for future versions.
@simon
The Genre doesn’t need to be one of the Nokia’s presets. You can have any text in the field as you want. As mentioned above, if the Genre value is stored as a standard metadata, then it will be imported by Nokia Music.
Album Art in Nokia music is optimized for Nokia devices. The artwork is automatically embedded within the track. When transferred to the device, the artwork will shop-up at its best on the device.
@Senthil
S40 devices with Media mode are supported by Nokia Music and they must be connected in Media mode for Nokia Music to detect it. This is different than PC suite mode. However Nokia music will be able to detect some new device even when connected in PCSuite mode.
@Tzer2
There are some compatibility issues on 64bit versions of Windows, hence Nokia Music do not support them. This will be resolved in future releases.
@Ricky
Thanks for your comment Ricky. Looking back over time, perhaps you will notice that since graduating from Beta last year, there have been number of improvements in the application quality. New features like device library caching, more visible import and transfer process, improved track recognition, improved library interaction with overlaid controls on artworks, better installation experience and many more are available in 1.3 release. We do realise that Nokia Music is still not at par with other media players, which have been around for years, but it is catching-up quickly with each new versions.
@Ricardo
The transfer process between Nokia Music and devices is being constantly improved. This depends on a number of factors including, the device hardware and software. There have been significant improvement from N95 to N96 and then to N97 and 5800. This will continue to improve in future.
@Suraj
Nokia Music can be downloaded at this link http://musicstore.nokia.com/download.aspx
@Indiana
E71 is not a Music phone, but it works without any problem with Nokia Music. You should be able to use Nokia Music to manage and sync music on this device. The problem with the unknown tracks could be related to non ID3 compliant metadata, as mentioned in this blog. You can always clean the metadata using the song-recognition button on the album art or by select “Get track/album details” after right clicking on the unknown tracks.
“To solve this problem, either update the metadata using song recognition button on the album cover or set Album artist value for these tracks to “Various Artist”.”
The ‘album artist’ field is not used… (N97)
Please add a convertion tool, I have a 16Gb microSDcard in my 5800, but still I want my files on the phone small and on the PC big, I want the PC to have MP3 and the phone M4A, just like good old “Nokia Music Manager” did it in the old days, I mistakenly update to PC suite 7.1.30 in one of my PC’s only to notice the lack of the good “Nokia Music Manager” so I didn’t updated the version on my media PC.
Please add this feature, and REMOVE DRM
why does nokia music take forever to open up? i have a decent enough system with a 1.8 ghz dual core processor.. pc suite is much faster. besides the advantages nokia music offers over pc suite are pretty minimal. why not just integrate the new features into pc suite instead of giving it out as an add on program?
Since the time I have installed Nokia Music 1.3, it does not recognize my E51 and I cannot transfer music anymore to it. On connecting my Phone via USB cable to my PC, it just give 2 options on the Phone
1) PC Suite Mode
2) Data Transfer Mode
It does not display
1) Media Player
2) Printing and Media
3) Media Transfer as suggested in Nokia Music 1.3
Is E51 not supported by Nokia Music 1.3 ? Any other suggestions to get this working ?
Thanks.
http://blog.ovi.com/2009/07/22/music-upgrade/#comments
Hi PK, the E51 does not seem to support MTP (media mode) connectivity so you will not be able to use Nokia Music with this device.
Hi Mark, Thank you for the update. I guess, I will have to uninstall it and revert back to the earlier version.
Unfortunately apart from the already mentioned lack of syncing whilst using PC Suite (a feature that was removed mind you!) this new version doesn’t tag the track Artist which means when I copy ripped files manually they end up under “Unknown” artist, and secondly, unlike iTunes (and I no fan of Apple but their software works), you can rip the last track of a CD with a data/interactive ROM content, such as Muse’s Origin Of Symmetry. Given this and the other stability issues with the handsets I think Nokia has a major flaw in their QA process for developing software and more and more users will become fed up and switch to iPhones (or maybe even LG/Samsung!)… Nokia, listen up, your time is limited, as a fan of your products you only have another two years at most to correct the way you develop and test your products, or you will lose far too much ground and go the way of Lotus 123, Wordperfect, and all the other relics.
When I rip my favorite CDs to AAC(.m4a), the Nokia Music application seem to be unable to play it?
I also cannot play m4a files from my iTunes library on Nokia Music app (Win), it seems to get most of (if not all) id3 info, etc. though. I would love to convert to mp3 to the phone.
Mark,
In response to your exchange with the extremely polite PK between September 12th and the 17th, “seriously”? Nokia music 1.3 is not compatible with the E51? What is the fix? Where can one get an older and compatible version of nokia music?
I love my Nokia for durability, style and the wifi option. Still, it seems to fall slightly short of the promise when I attempt to take advantage of some of the more exotic options.
Cheers
I have an e71 and when i import any music everything ends up in “unknown”–all metadata is lost. I have updated all nokia software of course, but the best i achieve is one lont list of songs which is useless. This is most frustrating; i don’t need to be told the e71 isn’t a music phone, when every other phone in this range can import metadata easily. Given the lack of applications and the cost of what should be free ones, clearly the dreaded iphone among others is way ahead of nokia. this will be my last nokia phone.
dont like ovi… I loved the old nokia suite…. Ovi just doesnt match up…. i removed it from my computer along with many of my friends….
I have a E71 and have just updated to ovi store from nokia music manager, the thing DOES NOT WORK the PC recognises it as PC Suite but wont do it as a Media transfer device. I have installed latest firmware and updated PC Suite but nothing.. this is the same on 3 PC’s! its rediculous how are we supposed to use the hardware we buy when we are forced to upgrade to managing software that just doesnt work! if there are know issues then nokia should allow us to keep what we have that works and leave upgrades as optional. Im going to go buy an iPod cos this phone SUCKS!
I recently purchased at e71 and was able to use the Nokia PC Suite 6 music application to download two songs to my phone. After that – unknown error. I rebooted and was prompted to update PC Suite and I now find OVI Music 2.0.1106.00. It does not connect to my phone. It shows a page telling you how to connect (connect a USB cable and select “Media Transfer”) – but if you do that – nothing. Just the same page telling you how to connect. I have rebooted, tried connecting the phone before starting OVI music. The OVI help has only one item in it. Not a very good product at all.