Nokia Beta Labs

Without Smart Playlist and iTunes metadata support, there will still be a long way for me to leave my iPod and stick only to a Nokia device. I currently use my N95 only to listen to online radios (which is obviously something that my wifiless iPod 5.5g can't do).

Smart Playlists are an AWESOME feature. With them I can set up ideal playlists for every situation. There's one I use while driving, for example. It's called "Radio". It is programmed to include only music rated 3 and better (4 or 5 for jazz and bossa nova), ban classical music and lenghty tunes. Without making any effort, I am able to listen to short tunes, mostly pop/rock, without having to bother to skip music that doesn't fit the mood.

It's a shame Nokia hadn't already put something like this in their devices -- not even the XpressMusic ones.

iTunes may not be the most user-friendly application around, but it runs pretty basic tasks such as music transferring between an external device and the computer pretty smoothly. The slow transfer rates in Nokia Music may, for all I know, be caused by Symbian's structure or the phone's Music Player's structure, but either way I can't see that the problem is unsolvable. Or am I wrong?

I am really not getting along with Nokia Music. Since downloading the Beta version sometime ago it has duplicated all my music and I haven't even attempted putting it on to my phone through PC Suite yet! I updated to the official version today and from what I can tell the only way to get rid of my duplicated tracks is to delete them one by one. How can I get Nokia Music to run as easily as iTunes and my iPod (that will shortly need replacing if I can't sort out the music on my N95)?

Mark -

Is there a chance that the updated version hasn't been uploaded to the site just yet? The splash screen says v1.0, but there aren't any improvements that I can see.

1. Still nothing for Podcasts
2. Still no custom autoplaylists
3. Still rather slow, even on a Core 2 Duo machine with 4GB of RAM and Vista

Can you give us an idea of the changes we should be seeing?

I am returning the 5310 CWM to the UK vendor (A High St chain) I have rejected the goods as not fit for purpose, I bought the handset for the CWM functionality, however the amount of time wasted on the CWM software is unacceptable,Nokia Music crashes as soon as the 5310 is connected, this is directly related to Nokia Music v1.0 and v1.1, as I can transfer non DRM files without issue,in the 21 days of ownership I have not successfully transfer any downloads from Nokia CWM.All this should have been resolved before release.

Rock on, thanks for the update, Mark! I'm downloading now (download is rather slow, btw), looking forward to seeing what's changed.

Excellent work on an automatic upgrade option - hope to see more of that from all of Nokia's desktop apps.

Hi,

I want to resize the current-downloads panel -- it's tiny and I can't see the hundreds of tracks I'm currently downloading from the dozen albums or so that I've chosen to download. I'd like to resize the entire right panel too because I've got a very wide screen.

Why do some tracks refuse to download? "Dead Can Dance", "The Spider's Stratagem (remastered)" has been stuck for ages, and no matter how many times I ask it to try again, it fails.

The client crashes sometimes and I can't figure out why. I should be able to, as I'm a very senior software engineer specialising in both .NET and Java.

Why does it only download one track at a time? I've got a fast connection, and your servers don't seem to be struggling too much.

Why is there a long delay between downloads (measured in seconds)?

Why is the store unable to provide more information on its categories? New Releases can't be expanded to see more than 6 albums and the same is true of nearly all the other sections. Top Albums only and Top Singles are the only sections with a 'see more' link.

Why is there a "purchase music" link at the top when I'm a CWM subscriber? Why don't the"sign in" or "join now" buttons go away when I'm already a member who has already signed in?

I myself am very dissapointed with the Official release of Nokia's Music Pc Client.
Ive used it since the beta, gave my feedback and hoped for the best. While the release did not implement any of my feedback or that of other beta testers, seeing they were great ideas for much needed improvement, but i will hold my breath till 2009 and see what other improvmets will come forth as stated.
I very much support this product and want to see it excell.
Im looking forward to making it my main use of music managment. But at the moment its impossible. With windows media player running so quick, its just easier to deal to with. If theres to be a connection of mobile an pc music implimentation here there will need to be a music convertor, and not the one used with nokia pc suit(too many problems)
My main issue is that this software is just too slugish, in point blank.
I hope to see improvements in the near future :)

@Joey:

I have tried every USB-connection mode but none works in Nokia Music PC Client. I have tried mass media storage, pc suite, media player and print. In PC Suite it connects as usual if I choose PC Suite mode, but nothing in Nokia Music PC Client.

There should be no problem.

What do you mean? After I uninstalled the program and rebooted and then reinstalled it, all music was still there without scanning any disks. Something must be stored elsewhere. But where? Do I really have to format the computer for solving this? That doesnt sound good...

Pros:
Great looking interface
Music Management
Has a great future ahead - If this program will be continually developed it can surely beat its other competitors

Cons:
It takes a long time to launch
The program itself when is used is slow and can be unresponsive
a lot of memeory is used
Music Management problems (album arts problem, incorrect song info from the web,previously saved lyrics from the file is, etc)not loaded
Limited compatible devices
Limited location for the Music Store

Great software. I do however have a few issues, such as inaccurate scaling of album art. When in "Artist" view album art appears to be fuzzy. When the album is clicked to show its contents, the art isn't properly centered. Areas of the bottom and right side appear to be cut off. Another problem I had is with the ACC ecoders. When cds are ripped using the AAC encoder (at any bitrate) the quality sounds like an AM radio. Another problem I had was with the software reading metadata from tracks ripped using the Nokia Music Manager. Other than these issues the software is great. Keep up the great work guys. Hope these issues get fixed. The OS I'm running is Windows Vista Home Premium on a 1.6GHz Daul Core AMD Athon X2 processor, 2GB RAM.

Hi Mark...about those new features again...how soon are they coming? On Remix event, Tero Ojanpera claimed that if two CWM users meet, they'll be able to share tunes. "It's possible in the first version, so I can pass a song to you in a very nice way", he said...So far we don't see this feature. This is a fascinating idea - but will it involve Zune-style song transfers, or MusicStation-style playlist sharing? Can you elaborate as to when it will be availble?
Thanks. Cathy.

Greetings,

I am using Windows XP SP3, and I've downloaded Nokia Music v. 1.0, and ever since then whenever I unzip other programs or files the Nokia Music Install Wizard appears and will not let me install any zipped programs.

I have tried uninstalling Nokia Music, and even after uninstall, the Nokia Music Install Wizard still appears. It seems that I can't get a clean removal. I would love to have a functioning Nokia Music client!

Please help!

I wonder why Nokia is not interested in the music of the future when every mobile phone user can transfer his/her photos to music in a few seconds? If interested, see and listen this:

http://www.synestesia.fi/music.html
or this:
http://www.myspace.com/synestesiasoftware

The only missing part is a good synthesizer in mobile phones.

This is one of the most interesting softwares made by Nokia, but it is still confusing and kinda hard to do all that stuff with that program.. it's not that easy to connect mobile's with pc and transfer the tracks, etc etc.. It is still too basic.. :s

@Joey: I just uninstalled PC Suite 7 and after that I uninstalled Nokia Music PC Client. I rebooted. Installed PC Suite 7 again and after that I installed Nokia Music PC Client and the same problem. My device is not in the list with my computer and cdrom. I tried both PC Suite mode and Mediaplayer mode (Mass storage doesnt work either). I think the last solution is to format the computer and reinstall everything. Getting kind of sick of this. . . I really want it to work.

Another reason for not using this program: it is still too slow to start! Windows Media Player opens in just 2 seconds, Nokia Music player opens in 30 seconds.. oh

Me again! (lol)
The program still has a bug it has in the previous versions, at the store area. But it happens even if you go there on the internet browser.. For example, if i'm at the Italian store, then I want to move to another country, sometimes it fails and gets back to the same page.. :o

Still crashes for me on first startup.

Might be due to a media file that it's unable to import?

One thing that could be significantly improved is the mobile synchronization part. Each time I connect my N82, the software searches for music on my phone, which takes forever since I have over 1000 songs on it. Doesn't the phone's music player have some sort of library-file that Nokia Music can import?

excellent point Thomas, same with me. its damn slow :-(
Totally disappointing. I would not recommend this to other.

Please help meee.... :(

Hi Ricky. New features are coming soon - we have focused mainly on stabilising the application for the 1.0 version. We still have some way to go before performance is fully optimised. Most changes pre-Christmas will be changes designed to further enhance the usability, as this is somewhere we know the competition is weak (iTunes tests badly in terms of usability, no matter what some people will have you believe). 2009 will see us pushing on into new ground. Thanks for the continued feedback!

Doesn't support the Mac but looks like it would be interesting.

Radius Millwork

Sorry for the late response. But i wanted to take a look at my pc before i gave you the response. there definetly seems to be a problem with your driver. Uninstall ur pc suite. open control panel and go to remove programs. remove every nokia driver you have their, aslo uninstall NSU to be safe, if it leaves the flash driver, uninstall it aslo. aslo uinstall pc connectivity solution, and the windows nokia driver. ALL OF THEM. Then install pc suuite, run the setup, get connected to pc suite before even trying the music client. aslo as a percaution, when u start pc suite it will ask to install a sync app to your phone, do it. try out music client now. This should save you from a format of your pc. :) hit me back up.

I'm experiencing a problem streaming with this software when the account is renewed each month - my credit card is charged and the account indicates it's up-to-date. But streaming no longer works with a pop-up advising to download the softare appearing every time I try to stream. The only solution appears to be to "unsubscribe" and setup a new account.
Nokia Careline has looked at this and the software has been uninistalled and reinstalled to no avail - they have no other suggestions.

OS = Vista Ultimate
Nokia Music = v1.0

Just installed this, so it may be these features already exist, but I haven’t yet figured out how to use them.

- I want to be able to double-click on a song in the library to play it, and consequently I want the next song in the library to play. Currently the song seems to move into the queue, and only songs added to the queue will play.

- Do I really have to add my entire library to the queue to be able to listen to the songs in order/shuffled? Is there no option of playing the library instead of the queue?

- In addition I want the ability to pick a shuffle mode (shuffle within the entire library, the current playlist, current artist, current album).

- I currently use iTunes, and due to owning an iPod will need to do so in the future as well. However, I would like to have my entire library of music in both applications. Is it possible to apply my iTunes star ratings to the Nokia Music application?

- Can the Nokia application organize my music folder, like iTunes can? If I drag and drop an album from a USB stick to the library, I want the songs to be copied into the music folder (and organized: artist:album).

- So far I haven’t received any music recommendations. Just “Searching for a recommendation…”.

Until some of the above changes are made, I think I’ll be sticking with iTunes. Of course owning an iPod, Nokia isn’t losing much, as I wouldn’t be able to buy Nokia’s music in any case. I’ll have to continue buying iTunes and Amazon DRM-free music to play on the iPod and my Nokia phone. I guess the Nokia application can still be used to monitor my music folders and to add songs to sync with the phone, but right now I’m not ready to use it for playing music or to buy music.

My Bad, it is Mediaplayer Mode. :)

Hello!

I have been using Nokia Music since the first beta version. By then most functions worked, except for finding album art/info online. With this new version Nokia Music PC Client cannot find my phone.

I have connected my N95-1 v.30 in mediaplayer mode through a USB-cable. The “musicplayer” pops up in Computer and everywhere except for in Nokia Music PC Client. What should I do? I have uninstalled-rebooted-installed-rebooted without any success.

Another thing, my old music collection is still there. Any way to remove EVERYTHING that comes with Nokia Music PC Client without formatting the computer?

/Allwise

@Allwise
Hello!
I have been using Nokia Music since the first beta version. By then most functions worked, except for finding album art/info online. With this new version Nokia Music PC Client cannot find my phone

Use Pc Suite selection when you connect to the Pc, it should work then.
Another thing, my old music collection is still there. Any way to remove EVERYTHING that comes with Nokia Music PC Client without formatting the computer?

There should be no problem.

I have purchased a Nokia 5800 express music. I was using Nokia 6280 previously. I am used to listening to songs stored in a folder. Usually songs are categorised in that fashion. I have a music data of aroung 50Gb. Nokia 5800 requires me to edit properties of song and feed the information about Artists, Album etc. so that I can listen to songs in sequence. In short I need to work hard and my hardware is doing a easy job. Why cant's I store my music folderwise and then select the option of listening to the songs contained in specific folder as was the case with Music player in Nokia 6280?

Can You please save me from editing thousands of song files?

@Allwise

Ok Allwise, which pc suite do have installed? Do you have it installed? If not, install one. 2nd if you do, then remove it and re-install. Because maybe there is a problem with the driver, or old.
You can un-install the music client with no problem, and it does not remove your music files because in essence it does ot hold your files, but just reads off your pc. so when you say after a re-install it still shows your music, that should be normal because a log is created and keeps a track of your settings and media library, so in the case of a re-install it saves you time. I swear i hope it works out this time :D :D

Well, formatting my PC atm. Hope this solves the problem. (Or maybe not, cause if it does Nokia has failed with something...) Will write about how it turned out. Maybe its something with the phone?

Just re-installed windows on my PC and now Nokia Music PC Client finds my phone. I've tried everything else. Too bad imho. Although good that it does work now :)

This software feels like an early release of something that might be quite good one day.

What is deeply worrying is that there is no news on your website about the next version, and as a cobbled together thing to get CWM out, it is acceptable.

As a long term solution this is not acceptable.

When is that going to be resolved?

It only does one track at a time for me but it does work.

Still no support for Mac users. PC client is fucking slow and crashes all the time. I'll stay with iTunes. Nokia didn't learn a thing in the past...

TOMORROW

I just got a 5800 Xpress Music and I want to use Nokia Music to handle my music now. I figured iTunes and iPod so why not Nokia Music and Nokia 5800? :)
The problem I am having is that it doesn’t want to import all of my music from my iTunes Music folder. It’s all in mp3 and all the music was imported using iTunes however out of around 1000 songs, only about 350 are being imported. Any one got a fix for this? I read through a large number of comments but it was taking too long so I though that I would just post it.
I would appreciate any assistance.
Thanks

System overheads - over 200MB memory?

Not sure if anyone else has brought this up, but I consider a media playing app using over 200MB of RAM unacceptable. WMP runs at 40MB memory on my pc. What does the Music app have that causes this much extra overheads, seeing as it's not even playing video? I'm pretty sure most people out there aren't sitting with 2GB + RAM on their PC's.