It's a big week for mobile music, with the iPhone going on sale tomorrow, and some big announcements already from Sony Ericsson and Nokia. But what if you're a beginner to mobile music, wondering how to get songs onto your phone? Here's a quick guide to some starting points.
1. Sideload your own tunes
Most music-capable handsets now come with USB cables to connect to your computer, and software to make it easy to transfer songs onto the phones. Assuming your music collection is in a format that's playable by your phone (the three most common are MP3, WMA and AAC), you can just transfer songs over, and they'll be there waiting for you when you fire up your music application on the phone.
2. Buy songs from your operator
All the operators now offer dual-download music stores, selling songs for under a quid, downloadable over the air to your phone. To access them, you'll need to visit your operator's portal and look for the music section, before browsing the available selection. Remember, the term 'dual-download' means you can separately download a higher-quality version of each song to play on your PC too, as well as burning CDs.
3. Buy from another music service
The most high-profile non-operator service this week is the Nokia Music Store, which launched at the end of last week. It's a web and mobile based store offering a huge range of albums and singles, for download to your phone or PC (and then sideloading). Sony Ericsson announced on Tuesday that it's launching the similar PlayNow arena next year too. However, alternatives include any online music store that sells 'DRM-free' MP3 music, which can be sideloaded to most phones. Examples are eMusic and 7digital.
4. Sign up to a subscription service
We've written before about MusicStation, which was launched by Vodafone recently. It's an all-you-can-eat music service, so you pay £1.99 a week, and can then download any of the store's selection of tracks to your mobile for no extra cost. Expect to see more services like this launch in the coming months, as music firms think this kind of subscription pricing could tempt more music fans.
5. Stream your home music collection to your phone
This is another new way to get music on your phone, which may become more popular in the months and years to come. Services like Orb MyCasting, Phling and nuTsie let you stream music from your home PC to your mobile via Wi-Fi, meaning that when you're out and about, you can dial into your home network and access your tunes. One for the geeks right now, but as these services get easier to use, they'll increase in popularity.
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