Nokia Ovi is no Apple in anyone’s eyes

Nokia launched its online software and content store yesterday to an estimated 50 million Nokia device owners around the world, but the fanfare was drowned out by the deafening roar of negative reviews.

Customers around the world rushed to visit store.ovi.com to download applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services and more on its launch day, but the Store suffered serious technical problems leaving it impossible to access on a number of occasions.

"Shortly after launching ....we began experiencing extraordinarily high spikes of traffic that resulted in some performance issues," Nokia admitted in a statement.

Noted technology blog TechCrunch called it a “complete disaster”, stating that applications disappeared from the site for no obvious reason while “navigating the online store is downright complicated, and the categories being assigned to certain applications and content are way off at times.”

Ovi Store by Nokia is open globally through the internet, and applications can be bought with credit cards. It presently supports operator billing in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain and the United Kingdom, while AT&T plans to bring the Store to its customers in the United States later this year.

PCMag.com added that: “At least in the U.S., the Ovi Store isn't a threat to Apple's or RIM's app stores. The store's collection is thin, it's awkward to use, and at least some of its goods seem to be blocked on most U.S. phones.”

Nokia revealed that additional countries, languages, devices and features will be added throughout the year, though declined to comment on when it will officially hit the UAE and the rest of the Middle East with local content and support.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Nokia's poor software technology
Posted by Antony Melvin, Abu Dhabi, UAE on Thursday 28 May 2009 at 13:03 UAE time


Whatever you tell Sharbeen, a Nokia is always Nokia. I have used almost all the phones, currently I am using an Iphone 3G, but when it comes for user friendliness, Nokia is the best. No other mobile will come near that.

Nokia's poor software technology
Posted by Sharbeen Srash on Wednesday 27 May 2009 at 17:04 UAE time


Being part of NOKIA's DIscussions board member as a daily user I've realized one thing. Nokia's software is of very poor quality and always lacks stability as to what we see. Their firmware update for phones have horribly gone wrong. most of the new updates fixes the previous bugs and introduces new ones. And PC softwares are most of the time unstable. When it comes to software Nokia has a real long way to go. I regret owning Nokia 5800 for this reason. Planning to switch to the new iPhone when it releases.

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