25th March - Californian gadget shop Apple has taken a leaf out of Nokia's book and is believed to be in discussions with the major record labels over an all you can eat music model.

iPhone and iPod customers would be given free rein on the entire iTunes music library in exchange for a price hike on the devices themselves.

The offering sounds a lot like Nokia's 'Comes With Music' platform, announced in December, under which consumers buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks. Once the year is complete, customers can keep all the music they downloaded.

This move flies in the face of previous business models used by both Nokia's own UK-based Music Store and that of rivals such as Omnifone's MusicStation platform - which stop users listening to music once their subscription has been terminated.

And Nokia has already had some success with the major labels - Universal Music Group International is already on board and Nokia said it is in discussion with the remaining major international labels.

However, there is still no word on what the actual pricing model may be and it's not clear whether Apple's potential platform would follow suit with a year's access.

However, the music-subscription-tied-to-a-device model does have the potential to give the digital music industry a boost, along with the devices market.