What's the future for Nokia MixRadio now it's spinning to independence?

It was called Nokia MixRadio. With Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile phones division, it's now called just MixRadio, but it's still one of the most compelling reasons for buying a Lumia Windows phone.

It's a Nokia-developed music app preinstalled on Lumias. It searches your phone, lists any music it finds, and lets you play it.

But that's not all. It will also stream music from Nokia's Microsoft's servers. It has predefined playlists or you can suggest artists and it will compile a playlist for you. You can even download the playlists and listen offline.

And all that is free.

There are some restrictions. For example, you are only allowed a certain number of skips-to-the-next-track if you don't like what you're hearing. But you can get rid of those restrictions - if you really want to - by paying £3.99 a month.

With that, you get unlimited offline downloads, no skipping restriction and better quality listening, although you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference in the quality because it's pretty good with the free version.

And - here's the big one - there are no adverts in the free service. Not even a little, but still annoying, banner ad.

OK, there are other similar streaming services. Pandora is one. But Pandora's free service has ads.

It needs to be said as well, that Microsoft's inbuilt Windows Phone music app - called Music (I think it used to be called Xbox Music, but I never used it so I don't know for sure) - is, well, crap.

It crashes, it stutters and it's clunky. And a slew of recent updates has failed to improve it much.

So, most Lumia owners use MixRadio.

But it could all be about to change.

Microsoft has announced that MixRadio is being spun off into a separate company.

The boss of MiRadio is thrilled. It now has the freedom to launch itself on other mobile platforms. That's got to mean Android and Apple's iOS.

And it also means it will almost certainly have to increase revenue.

Yup, you've guessed it...ads in the free version and a likely hike in the cost of the subscription service.

No-one's said anything definite. MixRadio itself says it will maintain "strong links" with Microsoft's Windows Phone. But what was - and still is - a compelling reason to buy a Lumia smartphone could soon become watered down and, well, commercialised.

Let's hope it's not RIP for MixRadio - gobbled up by the already-established big players in streaming Music.

Spotify, I'm looking at you.