Nokia Not Only Comes With Music, it Comes With Internet Radio via Open Source!
Written by Glenn Letham
Friday, 14 December 2007
We've heard loads recently about Open Source and making waves most recently is the addition of Internet Radio to the growing list of Nokia's Open Source applications. Recall Nokia Research Center has made available the Internet Radio Client as a free application to the community.
Naturally, curiosity got the best of me as I spent some time recently browsing the available apps for my new Nokia N95 8GB... low and behold, there was included on the deck a link to download the new, Open Source, Internet radio application... who wouldn't want to try this?? Free music, I'm all over that!
Once installed, the application is friendly and efficient, providing access to a seemingly endless list of radio stations from around the Globe. Stations are presented by category or genre, geographic location, language, or listed by favorites. Clicking the "Station Guide" option brings up all of these available categories.
As an initial test, I opt to list by country and look around Canada to see what's available. To my surprise I find that the radio station from my old University (U of Victoria, BC) is listed - CFUV. I simply click on the station title, it loads on the screen, and immediately begins to play. Under the options tab I can easily add the station to my favorites for quick access in the future. Clicking the station information tab provides me with additional information about the station like location, call letters, and genre. A nice feature of the application is the way that the music continues to play while you navigate around in search of other cool music stops. As a test, I navigate to Brazil stations, load one and the music fades out from the UVIC music and the new selection fades in... quite clever.
Download and install - check your Content Download for a link to download the service
Browse music by country, language, genre, or top picks
Select your country of choice and explore
Connecting is simple and fast!
Browsing by language is likely a popular way to select some entertainment. Currently there are some 304 English stations and many others are available including Finnish (only 2??), French, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew and any other language you can think of are provided. After surfing around the UI you can easily return to your currently playing station and song by clicking the Options / Go To Now Playing selection.
Perhaps the most pleasant surprise in using this cool, free service is the excellent sound quality provided by the N95 8GB... listening to the music through the loudspeaker is actually very bearable and borders closely on the enjoyable. Obviously some speakers or a nice headset would provide a much better listening experience but having the option to simply play aloud is nice.
Once you select a staion a familiar display with meta info is provided
You never know what you'll find - here I located a station from my old University days!
Video Review:
We heard at Nokia World about the plans for Nokia's "Comes With Music" initiative... recall this is a deal that will see customers of select devices have the option to have one year of unlimited music, anytime, anywhere to do what they want with. All the wrinkles are not worked out with this deal but we're told to expect users to have access to mullions of downloadable tracks - enter Ovi Music service. Pricing and terms of the Comes With Music deal have not yet been set. Until that time though I can definitely live with my Nokia device coming with Internet Radio! Music anytime, anyplace, from anywhere in the World... for free.
This is definitely another standout application from the Nokia Research Center... I definitely need to look at getting some sweet Bluetooth speakers and a nice new headset like the cool WH-600 headset that was being demo'd at Nokia World!
About S60 Internet Radio... This is a reference implementation of HTTP Internet Radio streaming (Shoutcast) for S60 2nd and 3rd Edition devices. It is intended primarily as a learning tool for the S60 developer community. The S60 Internet Radio reference application is a fully working example of an audio application developed for the S60 platform. The application supports SHOUTcast streaming audio playback. Currently, MP3 and AAC+ streams are supported.
Nokia is building more apps on Open Source
The application also supports local playback of audio files in the following formats: MP3, AAC, eAAC+, MP4, M4A, WMA, 3GPP, AMR, and WAV.
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We've heard loads recently about Open Source and making waves most recently is the addition of Internet Radio to the growing list of Nokia's Open Source applications. Recall Nokia Research Center has made available the Internet Radio Client as a free application to the community. 
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