Customers can search music by artist, album, song and genre to purchase tracks and download them directly to their Cricket phone for $1.99 each, or receive three download credits for a $5 monthly charge. Songs are available online at www.mycricket.com for $.99 each and customers can use Cricket’s Music Manager software to sideload the tracks to their mobile phone, or buy two copies of each song, one for their PC and one for their phone for $2.25 per song.

Customers can sign up for Mobile Music over the air, online or at Cricket stores and dealers. To experience Mobile Music, customers need a music-capable Cricket 3G handset, with an integrated music player and memory card. Mobile Music is currently available on Cricket’s 3G devices, including the Motorola ROKR, KRZR, SLVR and RZR2; and Samsung JetSet, r610 and r500.

The United Kingdom was the first market to offer Comes With Music in October 2008 and Singapore and Australia are expected to launch later this quarter. Comes With Music offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue and customers can keep all the music that they have downloaded at the end of the year to continue enjoying their music collection.

“Our goal is to connect people with the music they love, no matter where they are,” said Chris Gorog, chief executive officer of Napster. “Switching to our new format gives millions of AT&T customers the opportunity to enjoy the best mobile music experience available, in addition to the world’s largest catalog of music.”

AT&T customers can purchase and wirelessly download full-length songs from Napster Mobile for $1.99 each, which includes a copy that is automatically delivered to the customer’s PC. Napster Mobile is also available for a $7.49 monthly subscription, which includes five song downloads per month. Charges for downloads are conveniently billed to customers’ AT&T wireless bill.

Basically, this service offers two kinds of interactive services. The first, to stream music from computer to your phone wirelessly (by downloading and installing the application into your PC and identify your phone). Ah yes, please take a note: at this time, the Didiom software is only available for use on a PC (for Mac is coming soon).

The second, to offer iTunes Store-like service (offers 1.5 million DRM-free and legal MP3 songs. Only 89 cent per song or US$ 9.99 per album)

Listen to songs from your iTunes library, right on your phone…With Didiom, you can use your phone to access songs and playlists stored on your computer through wireless streaming. Just download Didiom to your phone and desktop and you’ll be ready to navigate the music files stored on your PC. You can stream them to over 200 phone models, including the BlackBerry® Curve™, for free.

The application supports more that 200 phones (including BlackBerry and Windows Mobile smartphones), and still only works for US cellular networks.

They recommend you to ask your carrier about an unlimited data plan before using this service. This way, you can enjoy getting your music, without having to worry about any extra fees.

See how it works through this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via 3Gweek]

Carphone Warehouse will be the exclusive UK pre-pay channel offering the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic ‘Comes With Music’ edition.

Comes With Music will also feature a tremendous selection of independent music, courtesy of deals with The Orchard (NASD: ORCD), Beggars Group, IODA, the Ministry of Sound, PIAS and Pinnacle. These companies join Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group in supporting Comes With Music. Nokia has also secured music publishing rights from CELAS on behalf of EMI Music Publishing, GEMA on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, SACEM on behalf of Universal Music Publishing, as well as the MCPS-PRS Alliance.

The United Kingdom will be the first market to offer Comes With Music with sales planned to start on October 16, 2008.

A report by TNS has found that within the UK alone, mobile phone owners could download 2.1 billion music tracks from the Sony Ericsson and Nokia music portals.

Last week’s statement by Sony Ericsson that it will partner with Omnifone to offer its PlayNow plus service is the latest in the race to bring unlimited music downloads bundles to market – kicked off by Nokia’s recent announcement that its ‘Comes With Music’ package will be available from next month.

The study also indicates that the new bundled music download services could shift consumers’ music habits away from older CD and PC-based technologies. 45% of CD buyers in Britain claim that they would buy fewer CDs if they adopted Nokia ‘Comes With Music’, while 47% of PC music down-loaders would expect to reduce their PC downloading.

[via Cellular-News]

However, says Clint Wheelock, vice president and chief research officer, “Our survey results identified some surprising differences between markets. Camera phones, for example, were more than twice as important for consumers in Taiwan versus those in the US. Similarly, Bluetooth is considered essential by mobile subscribers in Western Europe and Taiwan, but penetration of this feature is very low in Japan and South Korea, so it’s of little importance to consumers in those countries.”

Other key findings from ABI Research’s global wireless consumer survey are as follows:

• “It’s still a voice-centric world,” says Wheelock. Consumers across all mature markets still choose their mobile operator based on “the basics”: price, friends/family on the same network, and network coverage.
• The three most common features that subscribers have on their current mobile phones are: games (64%), Internet access (61%), and 2+ megapixel cameras (58%).
• Games and Internet access are also high on the list of features that subscribers have on their phones, but never use. Adds Wheelock, “Many mobile data and multimedia services are failing to reach the mainstream not because they’re unavailable, but because they fail to provide a satisfactory user experience and pricing model for most consumers.”
• The handset features that are least likely to be regarded as essential are: Wi-Fi, mobile TV, and games. 

A new ABI Research brief, “Wireless Subscriber Profiles and Preferences,” provides an analysis of survey results from adult mobile phone users in seven countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The web-based survey, which was conducted in 1Q08, captured details on respondents’ mobile phone usage patterns, purchasing behavior, satisfaction with operators and handsets, and attitudes about a variety of voice, data, and multimedia services.

With V CAST Music with Rhapsody, Verizon Wireless customers are still able to purchase songs over-the-air within the V CAST coverage area for $1.99 and get two copies of the song: the first for their phones, the second for their PCs in the DRM-free MP3 format. When customers download the V CAST Music with Rhapsody Software to their PCs and sign up for the monthly subscription, they have the ultimate music management service, including:

• Unlimited subscription syncing with access to more than 5 million songs
• Creating and accessing playlists, viewing playlists of other users, including celebrities
• Burning, importing and converting CDs to play anywhere
• Managing an existing digital music collection for free and syncing it to their mobile phones
• Buying non-protected MP3s of songs on the PC for 99 cents per song
• Buying songs on the phone, over-the-air get two copies of the song for $1.99 (one is over-the-air, the second master copy is the file customers download onto their PCs)

V CAST Music with Rhapsody also provides them with an award-winning desktop music application, allowing them to sync their favorite music quickly and easily, directly to their mobile phones. V CAST Music with Rhapsody will be available on the marquee V CAST Music with Rhapsody device, the LG Chocolate 3, when the phone becomes available in July; the service is also available today on select phones, including the LG Decoy and LG Dare; MOTO W755; Samsung SCH-u550, Samsung Glyde and Samsung Juke. Customers using the MOTORIZR Z6tv, MOTORAZR V9m or LG VX8700 may bring their phones into a Verizon Wireless Communications Store to receive a free software upgrade on their phones to access the service. 

With a single account, music lovers can access the Nokia Music Store via their desktop computer or directly from optimized Nokia devices such as Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N82 and Nokia N81. Browse for new music, get recommendations or search for your favorite artists, songs or albums all from the palm of your hand. Once a track captures your attention, you can add it to your wishlist to buy later or purchase it immediately for download to your device without having to download the same song again on your computer. You can also transfer purchased songs via your PC to compatible Nokia devices.

Individual tracks will cost 10.00 SEK per track and albums from 100.00 SEK. The Nokia Music Store will also offer a monthly subscription for PC streaming for 100.00 SEK. All music on the Nokia Music Store can be purchased through credit cards and pre-paid vouchers. Other highlights include the ability to listen to a 30 second clip from any track on the store. Visit the Nokia Music Store at http://music.nokia.se

Widely compatible, the Nokia Mini Speakers MD-8 will begin shipping in the second quarter of 2008.