AAS to Nokia: 23 suggestions for fixing and improving Ovi Store

I assume guys that you have sent feedpack directly to Nokia of these things?
But great article as always.
Will send this articles link to Nokia 😊

Paul

First I want to give Nokia some credit. They moved the categories entry on the Options menu to the top (from the bottom) in the mobile client. This happened, I think, when the client was updated around 6 weeks ago.

So let's have some more improvements.

It goes without saying that some of these issues will be addressed in version 2 of Ovi Store, but that doesn't stop customer ire now.

Furthermore there are some good reasons for these problems, but again a technical stop block will not wash with your average user. e.g. to allow redownloads to the same device you need to store the IMEI - this is only accessible in WRT 1.1 (i.e. with Platform services - 5800, N97, 5530, 5230)...

I can understand not allowing re-downloads on a different device to that which it was purchased on, but I do think developers should be given the choice of whether they license per device or per user... of course it is worth noting that other app stores allow re-downloads regardless of the device you are using.

Oh and this article applies to the consumer side, we'll cover the developer side of the Ovi Store in due course.

I second the message above - AAS is one of the strongest Symbian voices on the consumer side of things. You almost have a duty I'd say to push these points to the right ears in Nokia through whatever contacts or dare I even say backchannels you have. We as individual consumers don't have a fraction of the collective voice that AAS has with Nokia. Please make them fully aware!

Ovi Store has failed to excite me.

I would want them to read my phone and show contents based on categories. You don't need hell lot of categories.

Business
Utilities
Communications
Games
Fun Apps

Bundle all related softwares in simple categories so it becomes much easier for me to chose and go to the category I want.

The current lay out, lag all frustrate me.

I have been playing with a Blackberry Curve 8900 of a friend as I intended to trial it before buy and on that, the camera just sucks, but their app world is much better than Ovi.

the over all usage experience is just so much better. I am not a techie and I couldn;t find any difference in the music playing through it or my existing Nokia N79.

Nokia needs to realise the future does not lie in hardware excellence but in software revolution.

May switch ship to BB soon.

Am sorry, my comment may have got drifted from the original article.

Why it is so long to fix a problem? We cannot redowload app for several month now, it's a major drawback. A lot of potential buyers stay away from Ovi because of that. We can read people complaining in all the PDA's forum. This is an urgency for Nokia, but they do nothing for month. It's incomprehensible. Because there are so many people upset with this store, I think Nokia should communicate and tell to there customer base what's happen. Some explanation will help us to understand their lacke of reaction.

The ovi store is a complete, unmitigated, joke.

Awesome post. Here's my thoughts:

1. Duh
2. YES
3. I can see why they don't do this, honestly, but it is still annoying
4. Definitely should be available somewhere. At least something to tell what new apps have been added/updated
5. Yeah, the search blows.
6. Again, agreed.
7. Not sure I'd use an Alphabetical index, but it couldn't be hard to add, anyways.
8. For sure - the intent should be to convince users to switch from the demo to the full version - not choose one or the other.
9. Again, agreed. As of now, it's rather a guessing game when you download something, unless you've known about it previously. It's hard to 'discover' in the Ovi Store.
10. YES. Eliminate the useless reviews (and don't rely on users to report poor reviews - we have better things to do)
11. Agreed.
12. my Nokia N86 8MP Euro doesn't have a client, either - only a visual bookmark to the online store, with no option to download the client. WTF?
13. Agreed. Perhaps channel this info into the star rating?
14. This is why I don't link to the Ovi Store on S-G much - users get a better experience in our Symbian-Guru Store, and I make a commission. It's win-win for me to ignore the Ovi Store.
15. Not sure I'm on board with this one. Seems a bit much, and would only make the app more bulky.
16. This has been needed in N-Gage for a while, as well, but there's been no action/response from Nokia.
17. Again, not sure if this is necessary - seems it oversteps the bounds a bit, IMO, and would again add unnecessary bulk.
18. I've no doubt this is coming - I think, for now, the problem is the lack of eBook readers and fragmentation in Symbian ecosystem.
19. Agreed, though I've quit N-Gage till they fix several things.
20. YES YES YES YES YES. Nokia should be approaching all the big (and small) themers. It's such an active community - more active than the Symbian development community, IMO, and it's basically underground because Nokia's too blind to capitalize on it. They need to build relationships with these themers like Babi, Nahid, Larsson, Tehk7, and others.
21. Lol, again, agreed (love the Quake reference)
22. Sure.
23. Eh.

A simple thing like people who bought this also bought that....
Will also give users a bit more overview what things are all there.

Very good and well laid out list. I'd like to post the experience I've had with Ovi Store support and developers...

Like many before me and I'm sure many after, I purchased several programs and then had a problem on my phone serious enough to have required a hard reset.

Having lost my purchases, I read a couple of posts on Nokia Discussions and decided to PM a Nokia staff contributor whom have offered assistance to many on the forum before. I provided him with proof-of-purchase and information such as my phone's IMEI and number.

Within a day, he had SMSed me a link which allowed me to re-download my apps.

Not perfect by any means but the response was appreciated and for a manual process, fast enough considering possible time differences.

Subsequently, I had an installation issue with Best Taskman. As the replacement link allowed my choice of drive location to install, I had unfortunately made the wrong choice of installing it on E: rather than C: on my N97.

This resulted in the app not properly auto-starting.

Sending a support request to SmartPhoneware, the developer, also resulted in a quick response.

They explained to me that Ovi purchases provided a "pre-licensed" version which doesn't contain or require their usual registration code and while I could download the binary again directly from them, there was no way for me to activate it.

They were kind enough to issue me a registration code which allowed me to re-download the package directly from them and be able to activate it. This of course, liberates me from the current re-download issues with Ovi Store as I now have a valid activation code for Best Taskman and the install package on my Mac which I can re-install on the same device anytime.

With DataViz's RoadSync, upgrading directly from DataViz's site didn't present any problems and because of the way the application works, they did have a record of my registration. The only problem is that every time the app needs to be reconfigured, it does not check for existing user records but just asks you to re-register, but in fairness, that's not Ovi's issue.

So Ovi is pretty far from perfect but there are temporary solutions to resolve the shortcomings for now.

For me, the savings did help ease the pain and make me a little more patient. I paid US$ 1.95 for Best Taskman (normally $7.95) and $9.99 for RoadSync (normally $49.95).

I would definitely go back to Ovi Store once they start improving their customer experience and support infrastructure.

Right now, I just try to stay with fee apps 😊

The Ovi Store app on the 5800 seems to die after a few uses and starts up with "Script alert: Application initialisation failed.", you click ok and the app then closes.

Kudos for the UK-En spelling of initialisation, but needing to hard-reset the phone to get the Ovi Store app working again really sucks.

Just doing an uninstall/re-install of the Ovi Store app doesn't work.

The biggest problem that Nokia has, is that they used to be a company that focused nearly entirely on hardware rather than software. And back in the old days it was ok to do that. Because back then, every phone iteration had even more technically stunning things packed into the device with an even smaller form factor.

Today we have reached a state where our phone does everything we want it to do and more. It guides us to where we want to go, it reminds us of important upcoming meetings or birthdays, it acts as our main music player, it lets us watch TV, hell it does everything the people in the 60s and 70s watching Kirk and his crew ever dreamed of doing.

So what do we want from a phone that does everything we ever wanted it to do and more? We want it to do it with style and ease!

And that�s exactly the part Nokia has trouble dealing with. Just look at the current S60 5th Edition UI. Its clunky, slow, unintuitive and sometimes even confusing, in short everything a UI should not be and although Nokia is taking baby steps in the right direction, I�m afraid baby steps just won�t cut it anymore.

If you ask me, Nokia should take the leap, make a clean slate and ditch the S60 UI altogether. If the Symbian kernel is any good and according to the some people it is, they could even keep it. Then they should strongly think about renaming Symbian into something else, because I think that too many people already have negative feelings associated with the Symbian brand.

I really hope someone at Nokia is doing that or even better hiring me to do this 😊
I�m open to suggestions regarding new names btw 😊

Great list and not at all unfixable, it seems that most of them could be done in a few days and would make the usability much better. Perhaps a category for newest apps too? Whenever I look at the Ovi store i go all the way through it as it seems so random!

The media selections need to allow for sample clips - scenes b4 purchase like itunes amazon and many other stores. Why would I buy a song or video without having a taste of what it is like? This is definitely holding this type of sales back.

#2 needs to be even better than you suggested. Lots of stores do this (filter by device type). Stupid. What about enticing to upgrade. Show results regardless, and just indicate that it doesn't work on your device. Tell WHY it doesn't work (it's for QWERTY phones, it requires a GPS, etc.) so they know that maybe they don't want it, or what they are missing out on.

Otherwise, my gripes are much more structural:
24) Everything Nokia offers has to be here. PC software, Maemo software, plugins, drivers, etc. Or, Ovi content moves somewhere else. Don't care. But Nokia needs to build that brand by consolidating. Nothing ruins your brand like pointless fragmentation and exposing internal process.

25) Everything gets a demo. EVERYTHING GETS A DEMO. Sure, everything also is required to have several screenshots (of it working, not splash screens!) and a video, but everything gets a full, downloadable demo. I don't care if, due to a short value proposition, it expires after 5 minutes, but you get to try and see how it really works.

26) Every single device gets launched with access to it. I don't care if it's some S30 device that cannot install anything. If it can run a ringtone, it gets ovi store access. Should be like putting a battery in the box. Do not launch without.

27) Clarify and expand pricing models. Buy function needs to have options for what to do. Bill me, pay with CC, pay via carrier, buy a package, buy a subscription, etc. Dropout is caused by friction and confusion, much more than price or anything. Do not confuse, and offer options the users want.

Good feedback from everyone, keep it coming. I've forwarded this page to some members of the Ovi Store team.

Best - Bill

The points raised in this latest post about things to fix/work on in Ovi Store are all useful and valid. Like others have said, I will be sharing this with my Nokia peeps, too. It should be required reading. Thanks for the loads of good advice.

Only 10 apps / page is really annoying. It takes a long time to scroll through.

Thanks for the great feedback; all your comments have been taken onboard, and you have everyone's attention!

The MOST POPULAR sort is crap. It doesn't work. It adds the most recently launched/updated apps to the top of the list.

Please Rafe ask to Nokia that we need to know wich version the application is, exemple, I have Nimbuzz installed in my device, there is a link do download Nimbuzz on OVI Store, but is it newer than mine? How do I know?

Major points to add from me are:

1. Stop listing trial apps under free apps and add a trial category (with price for full version clearly stated).

2. Split the app store into two. One for teens after wallpapers and Hannah Montana Themes. One for the rest of us (though the latter will result in very few apps).

3. Make S60 app development easy. The reason why there's a vast amount of iPhone apps and a lot of good quality, is because they're simple to make. Very few people seem to be developing S60 apps, and those that do are the usual tacky mobile software houses that churn out endless tacky junk. What's missing is a good developer community focused on useful and productive apps rather than just chucking any old rubbish out to make a quick buck.