23 November 2009

Spotify’s Symbian Mobile App Opens Up
A World Of Music To S60 Based Smartphones

Spotify, the much-hyped Sweden's digital music service, has just launched a mobile version of its streaming music service that allows users to access the music on the go on Symbian S60 devices, as the music service opens its mobile offering up to a huge new audience.

Many of the world’s best-selling phones run on the Symbian platform, with Spotify’s latest mobile application supporting a wide range of mid-to-high end Nokia smartphones, including the popular Nokia 6220 Classic, E71 and 5800 XpressMusic models.

The app will also run on a selection of Sony Ericsson and Samsung smartphones running the Symbian platform, such as the Samsung I8910 HD and Latest Sony Ericsson S60 powered smartphone, Satio.

Spotify’s arrival on the Symbian platform, which has a global share of over 50% of all the world’s smartphones, follows Spotify’s launch on both the iPhone and Android-powered phones in September.

To get Spotify’s Symbian application, music fans can either download it directly to their phones by visiting m.spotify.com through their mobile web browser, or by entering their phone number on our new Symbian information page to receive instructions via an SMS.

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, Spotify is a proprietary peer-to-peer music streaming service which is gradually gathering a large fan-base in Europe and allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with almost no buffering delay. Music can be browsed by artists, albums or created playlists as well as by direct searches.

Although, due to the system's DRM, it is not possible to save the streamed music for use outside the application; a link is provided to allow the listener to directly purchase the material via partner retailers. The program/service in its free version is only available in parts of western Europe during the ongoing beta programme although the subscription model should be available in almost all countries.

Spotify has won plaudits from the music industry, which has been hammered by piracy, for offering a better and smoother alternative to illegal sites. It has more than 6 million users in Europe and over 5 million tracks available.

Users of the service can either listen to music for free and in exchange for watching adverts, or pay a premium fee of 9.99 pounds ($16.37) a month to avoid the ads.