Nokia to release digital music service

LONDON, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Nokia has taken aim at Apple, even using same London backdrop to announce its own digital music store and mobile interface similar to i-products.

The Nokia Music Store, to open this year, will allow users to download songs from the Internet to their computers or directly to their cell phones over wireless networks, which Apple’s iPhone cannot do.

Besides the music store, Nokia said it would revive its N-Gage game platform, with a number of video game publishers agreeing to supply games to download, The New York Times reported Thursday. The Finnish company also said it would make all of its mobile content and Internet services available under the brand Ovi, Finnish for "door."

Nokia demoed its mobile interface at the same 19th century fish market where Apple announced the European introduction of the iTunes music store. Nokia showed photos and video clips of the interface that will allow users to move through the various Ovi services. At first look, analysts said it appeared to resemble the interfaces for the iPod, iPhone and iTunes, whose simplicity is a chief selling point.

“It was obviously going straight at Apple,” said Seamus McAteer, senior analyst at M:Metrics research firm.