The idea of a standalone Twitter handheld seems so far-fetched that we almost thought it was a joke - at least until we stumbled across this Amazon.com page listing the device for pre-order. Now the question is: who will buy this thing?

To some extent, we understand the appeal of the Peek handheld. Email is an essential part of doing business today but not everyone can afford a smartphone and the expensive monthly data plan required to use it. The Peek gives those sorts of penny-pinchers an alternative. For a one-time purchase price (starting at $19.99 on Amazon) and a reasonable monthly data fee of $15, Peek users are given a cheap way to read and respond to email on-the-go. Designed primarily for non-technical users, the Peek device is like a scaled-down Blackberry with less buttons, no microphone or speaker, no web browser or apps, and no scroll wheel - only a thumb wheel on the side. All it does is email, plain text email. No attachments, no formatting, no embedded graphics.

Despite its overly simplistic nature, the Peek makes sense. It connects people to their personal or, more likely, their business email accounts for an affordable price - and that's something that serves a real need in a down economy such as this.

...but Peek for Twitter?

However, the new TwitterPeek seems...well...sort of crazy, to be honest. Who's so addicted to Twitter that they're going to purchase this device instead of using Twitter's SMS service or just breaking down and buying a device capable of running apps or surfing the web? We know Twitter is a lot of fun, but is it really so essential that we need a standalone device?

At this point, the company would have almost been better off launching a Facebook handheld than a Twitter device. Twitter just hasn't achieved the sort of "must-have" status that would make people want something like this. We would bet that the majority of Americans wouldn't have even heard of the social network if it weren't for its adoption by celebrities like Oprah, Shaq, Ashton, Demi, and others or its heavily promoted use by news networks like CNN. Still, even though Twitter is no longer a foreign word to Americans' ears, that doesn't mean that the masses are actually using it. Oh don't get us wrong - they try. But earlier this year, Nielsen reported that more than 60% of Twitter's first time users abandon the service within a month of signing up. They just don't "get it" or see the need, they don't know how to find people to follow, and they certainly don't know how to get people to follow them back.

Yet it's this very demographic - the somewhat non-technical mainstream audience - that Peek exclusively markets their products to. These people can't even figure out how to properly use Twitter, but they're going to buy a standalone Twitter handheld? We don't think so.

Currently, Amazon lists two types of TwitterPeek devices: one with 6 months of service included for $99.95 or one with lifetime service for $199.95. The devices come in gray or a very Twitter-like aqua. 

Along with the phone, Nokia also detailed plans for their new "Comes With Music" service, a 12-month subscription service which offers unlimited downloads. There's no charge to download the individual tracks because the cost for the music is bundled into the cost of the phone. [Note: this post has been updated throughout the day as news has come in]

Nokia isn't the only company with a subscription music service,  but theirs will be the first to let customers keep all the music that they download after the 12-months of the Comes With Music service expires. This is much different than other music subscriptions services, like Napster, for example, where you lose access to your music as soon as you stop paying. Although the tracks will be wrapped in DRM and tied to the handset and to a PC, they will be permanently owned by the customer. Other companies planning similar services include Sony Ericsson who recently announced PlayNow plus (PNP) and Korea's LG Electronics.

Nokia's other "Comes With Music" phone, this new one should be much better:

With 2 million tracks available, the "Comes With Music" service is no small offering, and considering the touchscreen device it's being paired with it's clear that Nokia is prepared to do battle with other smartphones. Whereas before Nokia only competed with conventional cell phone makers like Motorola, Samsung, LG Electronics, and Sony Ericsson, they're now going up against big competitors like Apple, Google, and Research in Motion (RIM), companies who are driving forward adoption of mobile internet. "Suddenly you have the mightiest companies in the world there as your competitors. That is a little mind-boggling," said Nokia President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

Making Mobile Music Happen Isn't Easy

To get to the point of being able to offer music on a mobile device, bundled into the cost of the phone, Nokia had to collaborate with both the slow-to-adapt music industry, who worry that mobile music offerings will cannibalize existing music spending (see chart below). Also a concern is the fact that, in many cases, consumers aren't willing to pay more for a mobile phone or contract just to get unlimited downloads. For example, a recent study by Jupiter Research found that only 5% of Europeans would choose to pay more for the service, a figure that speaks to the perceived value of subsidized services - and perhaps, the value of music in general. On the bright side, though, analysts at TNS Technology said that the launch of "all-you-can-eat" music downloads would reduce illegal file-sharing of songs. This is backed up by Jupiter Research, who found that half of the interested customers in this technology claim to be file-sharers.

Credit: Jupiter Research; Click to see bigger

Here in the U.S. there are more people interested in a "Comes With Music" type phone than a subscription music service. 13% would choose an affordably-priced $150 handset and only 6% would go for a $15/month subscription service.

Fighting Apple Means More Than Music

Nokia CEO Kallasvuo specifically singled out Apple as one of the mobile industry's main players, saying "We have a new, credible competitor in this business. You know I need to take my hat off. Of course we need to be able to respond to any competitor and we will." With the launch of the new phones and music service, Nokia thinks they have something that can threaten iTunes because they believe that ultimately, price and selection will win out over brand identity.

The Apple iPhone is far more than just a simple music/phone pairing. It's the App Store that makes Apple's offering so unique. Even Google new Android OS (now available on the T-Mobile G1) knew they had to build an App Store of their own in order to have any chance against the iPhone.

While overall, the Nokia phone has a more appealing form factor than the G1, there are other areas of concern is in its design. Where Apple has mastered simplicity and ease-of-use with their interface, the Nokia phone runs the Symbian platform, something many potential customers will be unfamiliar with.

Breaking News Section

We've now received official word from Nokia on what was announced today. Details are below.

Key Features of the 5800 XpressMusic Device

• Contacts Bar -Person centric user interface with visualized contacts makes it easy to share media and communicate with your friends
• Media Bar -Always an easy access to your favorite media•Industry leading high resolution 3.2 inch display
• Stereo speakers with surround sound
• Stylus and finger touch support for text input and user interface control
• Powerful connections with 3G, HSDPA and WLAN
• Key device in the upcoming Comes with Music service offering
• 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with Carl Zeissoptics and dual-LED flash. Front camera for video calls
• Built-in A-GPS and Nokia Maps and voice guided navigation•Responsive touch screen with tactile feedback
• Proximity sensor for preventing inadvertent touches and for saving power
• nHDwidescreen quality video playback
• Storage for up to 12, 000 songs with optional 16GB microSD cardPlanned

Music Synchronization

• Nokia Music Store
• Nokia OviSuite
• Nokia Music PC client
• Nokia PC Suite
• Windows Media Player 11 Inbox
• Nokia 5800 Xpress

More Info

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic introduces the 'Media Bar', a drop-down menu that gives you access to music and entertainment, like favorite tracks, videos and photos. The Media Bar also offers a direct link to the web and to online sharing. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports Flash content, which means you can search "the entire web," according to the company. In addition, the phone includes a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks, support for all main digital music formats, a 3.5mm jack, and built-in surround sound stereo speakers. Tracks are purchased from the Nokia Music Store and the newly updated Nokia Music PC software lets you drag-and-drop songs from PC to phone.

The Comes With Music service will, as speculated before, offer one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalog and customers can keep all the music that they download. Comes With Music will be available on the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the Nokia N95 8GB, and Nokia 5310 XpressMusic. The participating labels include Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, and EMI.

Images

See a slideshow with images of the new phone:

The non-touchscreen browser introduces a virtual cursor that is controlled with the keyboard navigational keys. Using short presses (clicks) on the directional pad's left key will quickly navigate through clickable elements. Longer presses on the left key will begin smooth scrolling. When scrolling, after a set amount of time the page will gradually zoom out to give you a view of the entire layout which will allow for faster scrolling. When you stop pressing the directional pad button, the browser will gradually zoom back in on the element that the cursor is positioned over.

The right key of the directional pad will bring up a menu that provides access to navigation functionality, including items like the Address Bar, Refresh, Back, History, Bookmarks, Tabs, Bookmark This, and Quit.

Touchscreen Firefox Mobile

The touchscreen version of the Firefox mobile browser seems to borrow from Apple's mobile Safari browser with some familiar-looking buttons which include the back and forward navigation arrows, a bookmarks button, and a retractable address bar. The star-bookmarks button will show you a list of your bookmarks if you tap it once; tap it twice and you can bookmark the current page you are viewing. However, this UI also includes some new features like Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons, which are on the bottom toolbar, as well as a tabs button that will display up to four tab previews displayed 2x2 on your screen for fast tab switching.

Weave Integration to Come?

Although not detailed in these specifications, many sites are speculating that these new mobile browsers will provide bookmark syncing through Weave, Mozilla's new project for data and metadata portability. This is likely since mobile syncing was one of the listed "Use Cases" in the Mozilla Labs forum on the project. With Weave, though, bookmark syncing could really be just the beginning. Weave could, in theory, also sync up browser settings like sessions and passwords from desktop to mobile to laptop and beyond.

Another big possibility is the development of extensions designed just for Mobile Firefox. This would be a break-out feature that could make Mobile Firefox unique in this space. However, no plans for this type of development have been announced yet.

The Mobile Firefox browser should arrive sometime in late 2008.

...But Opera Mini Already Does That

What's interesting about the Mobile Firefox announcement and surrounding hubbub is that Opera Mini today offers nearly the same features that Mozilla is still developing.

Most notably, Opera Mini 4 can already sync your mobile phone bookmarks with the bookmarks on your computer by using something called Opera Link. Although not as seamless as the possible Weave setup (perhaps), syncing bookmarks with Opera is fairly simple.

You click "Synchronize Opera" on the Start Page and then sign in with your Opera Account. Opera Mini will continue to synchronize your data until you log out.

Opera Link Photo via Opera.com

Opera Mini also has many useful navigation options, too. For example, pressing * # switches your screen to Landscape Mode, a setting that can be enabled as the default.

A virtual mouse is also provided: you can move the cursor towards what you want and it quickly snaps the view to the link or the content. When you first visit a web page, Opera Mini shows you an overview and suggest where to begin reading. Click once and you can zoom in on the content.

Before you click on a link, however, you can focus the cursor on the link to see where it's going to take you. You can then choose whether you want to open the new page with images turned off, a feature that can be turned on or off at any time.

Opera Mini also has several keyboard shortcuts. Power scrolling shortcuts (2, 4, 6, and 8 keys) let you quickly move around the web page and the 5 key zooms you in and out. Pressing 1 bring up the Context Menu where you can hit reload or switch to Mobile View. This unique Small Screen Rendering feature lets you fit any web page to your screen's width. Opera Mini 4 will adjust the page structure on the fly, so you can browse up and down without having to also deal with horizontal scrolling.

Blackberry users have built-in menus designed just for them and for Windows Mobile/Symbian users, there's an even more feature-rich Opera Mobile browser to use.

Why Firefox Might Win

Although Opera Mini is a great mobile browser with tons of features, back on the desktop, Firefox has more users. So, when it comes time to choose a mobile browser, the one that syncs with your desktop browser of choice is likely to win out. Plus, if add-ons are developed for Mobile Firefox, it has the possibility of becoming a killer mobile app.