Nokia is throwing a celebration of its music prowess next Wednesday, May 15th in Toronto to show off “the next chapter of music discovery in Canada.”
It’s expected that Nokia Music finally land here, the free streaming radio service offered to select Lumia devices in the U.S. and around the world. Another hint of its pending arrival is buried within the “Phone Features” section of Koodo’s Nokia Lumia 520 listing, where it offers Nokia Music as an option.
Nokia Music offers a curated selection of “mixes” broken down by favourite artists or music that you have stored locally on the phone. One of its best features is the ability to store these mixes offline for playback when you have no service. It’s sort of like Slacker Radio’s caching abilities, but made specifically for Windows Phone.
If is also available to download now on a number of Windows Phone 8 devices, including our unlocked Lumia 920. Because it’s not launching until next week, your mileage may vary in terms of availability, but from what we’ve seen, the free version is great. There is also a $3.99 subscription available for increased offline storage capabilities and lyrics.
Nokia has already offers a number of exclusive features to Lumia devices, including HERE Maps, HERE Drive+ Beta, HERE Transit and more. Adding Nokia Music to the list should help extend the company’s lead over HTC and Samsung in the Windows Phone space, and bolster its potential marketing touch points when compared to Android, iPhone and BlackBerry 10.
(Thanks Justin!)
