Nokia, Samsung, Extend Streaming Music

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Most smartphones that you buy these days come with lots of little applets that are added to improve your overall smartphone experience.

Some actually turn out to be useful and popular. Many are just a waste of space. That's why experts usually describe the package of included apps as "bloatware". Nearly every manufacturer/cellular provider is guilty of including the stuff.

But, it's bloatware only if it's never used, and just takes up valuable memory/space. The companies want you to use these programs and not other similar apps. And maybe, if it turns out that you like them and use them a lot, you might be willing to pay for added usability features.

That's why Nokia (NOK) is adding a premium layer to its music subscription service. The new deal is called Music+. For $3.99 each month (or € 3.99 overseas) you'll soon be able to listen to higher quality music streams, unlimited downloads to get song lyrics, plus unlimited skipping between songs and even a special, new Nokia Music+ app for your PC.

Jyrki Rosenberg, Nokia's vice president of entertainment, explains it this way: "We spend a lot of time listening to how people use the service and have even managed to half the amount of skips per songs played, which is a combination of our systems and musicologists understanding and shaping Nokia Music around the users."

Getting Nokia smartphone owners to spend an extra $4 a month doesn't hurt his company's bottom line, either.

And Samsung is taking the idea one step further. According to published reports, the Korean tech giant has confirmed that it plans to offer its music streaming service to non-Samsung products.

According to published reports, Samsung's considering offering its Music Hub system to other manufacturers' devices sometime in the future. No timetable has yet been set, though.

Samsung's Senior Vice President for Media Services, TJ Kang, warned that before this happens, the company's planning to offer Music Hub on more of their its products, such as all of the company's phones, tablets, computers, televisions and possibly its new major appliances that (like refrigerators) are connected to the Internet via Google's (GOOG) Android operating system.

--Written by Gary Krakow in New York.

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Gary Krakow is TheStreet's senior technology correspondent.