The Nokia Ovi Store now open in the UK

I have it on my NAM 5800. Downloaded an installed fine, but server is swamped.

I can' get it to use wifi, it goes by default for my AT&T service, even if I connect to wifi first. Is this how it is for everyone?

I just downloaded my Ovi Store in Woodbury Minnesota. YEAH!!!

I tried to get Ovi Store from Nokia Download and it pointed me to store.ovi.com web page, not an app. Some people get this result with Ovi store too.

Been reading a few sites, knocking the Ovi Store already, and its annoying to read them, especially when the Rollout is not yet complete, and add to that the servers are bound to be swamped at this early stage.

Ovi Store Mobile App is still not available in Finland at the time of writing this post..

I'm continuously disappointed with the Ovi offerings from Nokia. They're too clinical, robotic and slow.

The Ovi store experience is no exception. Both the online connection and device-side browsing.

Very few apps, nothing new and interesting to download. Does Nokia not realise that they should have some killer apps at launch.

Very disappointing compared to the iPhone experience. Using the store on the 5800 should have been a great experience, but it's clear that Nokia simply hasn't got into the touch-screen mindset yet when developing apps.

Nokia please step up.

The content I see on Ovi store is the same old boring trash. Maybe it's just the sad state of S60 and Symbian in general.

And no, I am NOT an Apple fan boy. I don't have an Iphone.

Sorry Nokia: having a Star Trek ringtone on Ovi will not win you any fans.

Pathetic.

Why would Joe Public care two hoots if an app is written in Java or Symbian C++? That's just the kind of 'complication' that has put people off in the past, and why people think that iPhones are great because they're dead simple to understand and use. As long as Ovi Store understands which is which, and only offers apps that a particular handset can run, there's no need to point out the difference.

nothing in Finland yet... aiaiai
(except for those working at t Nokia house of course...)

Works on my n95 with Orange. But my gf's 5800 on Tmobile is not listing the Ovi App in the download! section

Hi,

Cy Starkman here.

So. Shall we have international condemnation in the press, message boards full of outrage, apologies from Nokia, and free credits all due to poor and buggy service. Will the intolerable wait due to server load be savaged on the blogosphere, Nokia the joke etc...

Because I recall last year that a little fella, a late entrant with barely a 1% market share of the mobile market releasing an online shop and a cloud service while also launching globally not just with a service but their first international phone and global activations, all on the same day.

They got ridiculed for server load and reliability issues.

So Nokia... Market leader, decades of experience rolling out global phone launches...

...A bit of wait and see, or a "i already expected this" is about the depth of the fist pounding

yeah but imagine the publicity boost if/when nokia hit the magical million downloads in a much faster time than apple managed to with the app store. maybe the reason for the quick roll out. imagine it will backfire though as i am finding it almost useless to use at the moment. (on a side note, do you have any idea when we can expect an official omnia hs ovi store app? will the 5800 .sis file work?)

slitchfield wrote:
It's also worth noting that content shown is specific to your ... region, so exact items shown will vary

"Region"? I wonder how they find that out. I run my E90 without a SIM card,using wifi mostly. Does the application use GPS, or does it look at the IP address (wouldn't work for proxy or vpn users)?

We have been trying to get CorePlayer Mobile approved for over 2 months now with little help or no response from the OVI/Nokia staff.

Any other developers getting the same lack of response to their software submissions?

not sure what everyone else thinks but i think ovi store is doomed to fail. not because of the speed and stability issues just now(which are to be expected) but due to the ultra expensive prices. there is no way i will pay �6 for a rubbish java game or �3 for a theme or ringtone. when these are all to be had for free online. in the current financial climate these prices are extortionate. now i dont really agree with pirated or hacked games and gave up on these when using my iphone as i thought the pricing structure on the app store was very fair , on the app store u usually know that if you are paying �5 or �6 for a game it is definatly going to be worth it. but it will take something special for me to pay the current prices on ovi. hopefully this will get better with time when more content and therfore more competion is on the store.

grr noki another letdown

davidmaxwaterma wrote:"Region"? I wonder how they find that out. I run my E90 without a SIM card,using wifi mostly. Does the application use GPS, or does it look at the IP address (wouldn't work for proxy or vpn users)?

I meant as in specific product codes, e.g. a 'Euro Red' Nokia 5800. A phone like the E90 will have half a dozen product codes depending on the region it was created for, as I understand it. Product codes can easily be checked within s/w.

Unregistered wrote:not sure what everyone else thinks but i think ovi store is doomed to fail. not because of the speed and stability issues just now(which are to be expected) but due to the ultra expensive prices. there is no way i will pay �6 for a rubbish java game or �3 for a theme or ringtone. when these are all to be had for free online. in the current financial climate these prices are extortionate. now i dont really agree with pirated or hacked games and gave up on these when using my iphone as i thought the pricing structure on the app store was very fair , on the app store u usually know that if you are paying �5 or �6 for a game it is definatly going to be worth it. but it will take something special for me to pay the current prices on ovi. hopefully this will get better with time when more content and therfore more competion is on the store.

grr noki another letdown

This is not Nokia's fault. Developers are free to set their own price point.

Whether prices will come down to App Store levels remain to be seen. The main problem here is operator billing. This is very expensive. First there's VAT at 20%, then operator billing at 60%, then the revenue share at 30%. So for an app that costs EUR 1,

1) subtract 20% VAT of 1.00 = 0.80, 0.20 goes to the government
2) subtract 60% operator billing of 0.80 = 0.32, 0.48 goes to the operator
3) subtract 30% revenue share of 0.32 = 0.22, 0.10 goes to Nokia

Compare this to credit card billing

1) subtract 20% VAT of 1.00 = 0.80, 0.20 goes to the government
2) subtract 30% revenue share of 0.80 = 0.56, 0.24 goes to Nokia

Compare this to App Store

1) subtract 30% revenue share of 1.00 = 0.70, 0.30 goes to Apple

For the developer to make as much on Ovi as on App Store per sale, prices need to be three to four times times as high.

Bosambo wrote:So as usual T-Mobile are blocking handset owners from certain features? Typical. I couldn't use N-Gage for almost a year because T-Mobile blocked the ports.

But Download! works here (Germany, TMO) in general, so it might not be a port issue. I can still download via Download!, but I just do no see the Ovi Store Icon.

It is just refreshing the catalogue and then the Ovi Store Icon should be on the first level? Or is it hidden somewhere?

Unregistered wrote:i have a nokia 5800(silver) on orange and i havn't got the ovi store on my phone yet!! 😞

Same here (5800 blue), but others do have Ovi store on the 5800, so it is not just phone dependent.

I can't believe Nokia would release this rubbish, particularly after they have seen Apple's App Store and should know where to pitch it in terms of the competition!! The user experience is poor compared to the iPhone, I can't even find a way of searching? The text is too small on the Internal screen of my E90 but better on the smaller External screen, I prefer the old Download! format. There is nothing new in terms of Applications and the user interface makes you even less inclined to actually purchase anything!!

@svdwal

ok thanks for making me aware of that although vat is currently at 15% i undestand the point you were making. but surely nokia have done there own calculations and would have known that to truly compete with the app store similar pricing would be necessary and achievable?! maybe nokia could come to some sort of agreement to bring down the charge for operator billing as 60% is extremely high even for the greedy british operators

At least they fixed the performance issues, so the web based ovi store is usable, but still slow. I have been able to buy Spore Origins via the web store ...

svdwal wrote:

1) subtract 20% VAT of 1.00 = 0.80, 0.20 goes to the government
2) subtract 60% operator billing of 0.80 = 0.32, 0.48 goes to the operator
3) subtract 30% revenue share of 0.32 = 0.22, 0.10 goes to Nokia

Compare this to credit card billing

1) subtract 20% VAT of 1.00 = 0.80, 0.20 goes to the government
2) subtract 30% revenue share of 0.80 = 0.56, 0.24 goes to Nokia

Compare this to App Store

1) subtract 30% revenue share of 1.00 = 0.70, 0.30 goes to Apple

So, App store doesn't pay taxes.

Or am I missing something? At least the iTunes musicstore prices include VAT.

Nokia N82 on Orange UK, Ovi not showing up in download yet.

A quick update on my previous post:

After the fourth attempt - yes, that's four attempts, how many non-geeks would bother, Nokia!? - the Ovi Store app finally installed and ran correctly.

Unfortunately, I've been experiencing exactly what everyone else has been reporting ever since: slow response times, a very poor user experience and very poor design.

It's incredible - like too much of what's coming out of the doors at Espoo recently, it's as if they never asked anyone to try it before they released it. Get a dozen of us in a room for a day or two and we could have offered a list of most of the big things they needed to fix. Nokia, suggestion: next time, how about doing that BEFORE you make the product / service available to the public?

So, someone please correct me if I am wrong, but it appears:

1. You cannot use wifi to connect to the OVI store.

2. Even if you go to the Ovi store on your laptop, you cannot download apps, you can only send them to the phone.

Does anyone know if the Ovvi Desktop offers a local download option?

If the above is true and the OVI desktop offers no options, I am only going to be using the store if I have no choice. I will be using it instead as a catalog to identify an app and then go to the developer to see if I can get it there or in some other online source.

Unregistered wrote:So, App store doesn't pay taxes.

Or am I missing something? At least the iTunes musicstore prices include VAT.

Sales tax/VAT is not handled before the 30/70 revenue share deal between Apple and the developer. I looked at my App Store revenue share report and there is just the 30/70 percent share. There's also no mention of VAT on the invoice. That means, I think', that the sales tax/VAT is coming from Apple's 30% share.

Income tax however is deducted separately, but only if you do not sign the necessary paperwork, tax agreements between countries and all that.

Unregistered wrote:@svdwal

ok thanks for making me aware of that although vat is currently at 15% i undestand the point you were making. but surely nokia have done there own calculations and would have known that to truly compete with the app store similar pricing would be necessary and achievable?! maybe nokia could come to some sort of agreement to bring down the charge for operator billing as 60% is extremely high even for the greedy british operators

VAT in Britain is 15%, but Ovi is probably legally hosted in Finland, and in Finland VAT is 22%. So the actual calculations are a bit worse than for 20% VAT, which is the EU average.

Nokia can set prices, as any shop owner can set their own prices, but then Nokia would be forced to make agreements with all content providers to buy at "wholesale prices". That's going to take lots of time. Further, ISV's must honor older contracts with other resellers such as Nokia Software Market, and it is possible that these contracts forbid ISV's to have different retail prices.

Anyway, having the Ovi Store up and running is half the battle, making it more competitive and worthwhile for ISV's is the other half.

Well, it seems to work fine for me on my UK, 3 branded N95 8GB. A little slow, but better than Download!. In fact, that pretty much sums the whole thing up - a bit better than Download!. As others have said, the app selection is uninspiring to anyone who's familiar with S60 software, and the prices are steep compared to App Store. So I'd say Nokia have their work cut out for them. That said, I think this is aimed less at the sort of people who post on AAS than the mainstream consumer who can't afford an iPhone but wants to buy stuff on their phone. Maybe it will appeal to them.

My 5800 on Orange UK is still not showing Ovi Store in Download!

its so typical of Orange, they dont release new firmware untill like 3 months after every other network.
( Orange's Red 5800 is still running V11 :| )

so yeh, and at the end of the day WTF at the pricing, �22.00 to download a dictionary, holly crap. even most of the free applications on the developers websites are now like �8.00. haha Nokia seriously need to sort this heap of junk out soon.
They are FAR FAR behind the App Store (even when the app store was first released)

i've found a good article from the nokiapp guys on what is wrong with the Ovi Store. it's a good & funny read at that: http://nokiapp.com/2009/05/26/first-impressions-why-we-dont-like-the-ovi-store/

I've got a voda v20 blue 5800, and I wasn't seeing anything in download all day either. I read somewhere about rebooting and then trying again - what do you know, it worked!

Can't get it to log in with my nokia account though, will keep trying.

When the access point options pop up on the 5800, if you select options->select access point, you can choose more than the list it initially gives you.