Nokia Music Store - Only Windows IE Users Need Apply

Nokia have just released a new music store but being a Firefox user I can't access it. It's been designed only for Internet Exporer 6+ and Windows. The reason is that it uses an ActiveX control for their 'Nokia Music Bar'. How crazy is that? As a web designer there's no way I would design a web site or application just for Internet Explorer. Our clients wouldn't be happy and it's just not something that you do so I'm a little confused as to why Nokia took the conscious decision to make such a restrictive site.

And not only have they restricted the store to just IE6+ and Windows, they've restricted the phones that the service can be used on. The only supported phones are the N95 8GB and N81 - two brand new phones that aren't readily available. Hardly seems worth launching it. [via]

Comments

[boO]

i'm sure the people at Nokia understands that it's just restricted for Windows & IE users but keep in mind, it says "at this moment" it only supports Windows and IE. It will soon work for Firefox users and other OS.

remember it's beta...i'm sure they just launched it probably cause of 1. a deadline (which i'm sure we all have) and 2. to test to see what the public initially thinks about the service if they can access it and get some research results from the launch.

[Passerby]

Its especialy wierd considering the pervalence of Firefox in Finland (as high as 40% some claim). There again, they outsource some of the stuff to other countries so...

[MarkP]

I have a non-8GB N95 which doesn't work either. I can't for the life of me work out why they'd do this? I've got a 2GB card in it which is more than enough to store music on. This, coupled with the fact that they're so selective about what browser/OS you're using to get on really narrows down their market. Seems like they've shot themselves in the foot a bit with this one - I can't see it doing terribly well until they increase the supported devices.
Nokia do have a huge user base though, so the few people that can actually access it might just make them a bit of money.

[Tom]

The guys who built this are in Bristol.

You should head over the bridge and have a few beers with them to find out there thinking on the IE only decision

[James Venning]

Ha! Brilliant, I love IE - tis much faster. Yeah, may have some bugs if you don't unpatch them but even so, it rocks!

[Proffessortwo]

I have had this problem with quite a few music sites. With a few of them, they have wanted me to install a firefox compatibility package, and then they've given me links to nonexistent websites to download it. What's with all this prejudice against firefox?

[flamingkitties]

Could they have bought some Microsoft software to make it run (I don't know internet technical things *much*), the BBC's watch again service, the online one, when it was in beta testing which I had a go at, it wouldn't work with Firefox because they had a Microsoft-based specially designed mediaplayer in it. It was crap so I gave up.