I think as Alex Kerr points out above, T-Mobile may have the best idea – Nokia builds & maintains the App Store, T-Mobile brands, bills and does customer support.

Via @Mike Bradshaw and Teemu Kurrpa.

Says. It. All.

Apple's iPhone kicked the ass out of Nokia Download! and anything else that went before it by way of sheer ease of use along.

I would love, love, love the Ovi store to be amazing. I really hope it is.
But it the 'store' isn't immediately obvious to your average joe, on a device that *begs* you to play with it and find out more/explore then it has no chance.

Apple put the App store on the 'home' page. They made it easy to browse, easy to buy and easy to download & install… I mean, you've seen *that* TV ad right?

http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename… <— yeah, that one.

If Ovi and/or Android can come anywhere near the bar set by Apple, then they might, MIGHT have a chance at emulating Apple's success.

I don't care if _everyone in the world_ has an 'Ovi store enabled' handset – if the UI sucks, they won't sell a damn thing.

1) The vast majority of iPhone purchasers have at least one other (if not multiple) Apple products, so already had a working iTunes and were bought into the apple view of the world

2) most of the Maciban (those people for who life is on hold waiting for Sir Steve of Jobs to make announcements), are willing to *pay* *MONEY* for things as long as they are pretty. In fact the Maciban may be the solution to the global financial crisis

Most Normobs have been trained by the operators to never click or download things, as doing so is likely to lead to a giant bill the next month, so even though their S40 phone *could* in theory support lots of apps, the only thing they buy are ring-tones and wallpapers.

Ewan is completely right about the “50 million customers. 49 million of which couldn’t give a flying flip about downloading applications”.

My method was to start with a mobile web application that detects and works on every browser ie. on a mobile or a PC. Then if someone wants to access your site using their mobile they must already know about accessing the web with their mobile. The trick is not to force them to download, save, wait for a text or open anything until they have had an experience of your service.

Focus on the small percent of people who have a capable phone (thankfully it is a bit higher than the 2% Ewan referred to) as they are customers who have the greatest propensity to pay for mobile content. I’ve managed this by simply calling my mobile dating site The 3G Dating Agency. Some early critics would say this was limiting of my potential customer base but to customers it’s very helpful because it makes it quite obvious that if they’ve got a Nokia 3000 series mobile using this service is probably not going to be possible. But pop down to a local retailer and buy a 3G Phone and a data plan and they’ll be all set to go.

Help the customer to help you so for example if they need to upgrade their mobile or get a data plan to use your service try and do a deal with a mobile phone retailer. We did this with a leading UK retailer (www.phones4u.co.uk/3gdating) and it means customers can benefit from an extra £30 of FREE credit when they buy any new phone or data plan.

Hope this is of some help…

It's not about being in the top 25 iPhone Apps. Not necessarily.

If I read about a simply brilliant application that allows me to [do something, whatever] — and if I read it on your blog, Alex, I'd have an EASY method of discovery. Two clicks and I'm downloading it. And then I'm telling everyone and their dog about it too.

Ovi looks promising, it really does.

total respect to you, and MIR in general, for being honest, open, and taking the fight to the industry.

you got balls dude.

It has got to be one of the biggest ironies in the world today that mobile network operators are among the people who understand mobile the least, or rather what mobile has become. (Heresy! Burn me at the stake!). They think it’s about network interfaces, and voice calls. Yeah, sure it is. But it’s also about mobiles being the next gen of personal computer, about software and services – that work, that are open, that are easy, that are accessible to developers (to develop) and users (to use) alike. And operators REALLY don’t get this. People within them do, but not as a whole corporate mindset that actually changes things. I mean, just on the mobile web front, the amount of transcoder abuse that seriously damages developer efforts and user experience, is INCREASING. Despite the cries of developers and users.

Anyway. Agreed on the platform priorities – for today. iPhone 1st, then Ovi (but not launched yet), then Android. But it will not be long before Ovi will be unreachably out in front. The numbers alone across S40 and S60 will make Ovi store vastly more rewarding than iPhone. Based on what we know of Ovi store today.

One solution for operators will be for the existing big name app stores who know what they’re doing, to run the operator app stores. So T-Mobile in the UK have the right idea with their recent announcement that Nokia’s Ovi Store will power (or be rebranded as) the T-Mobile UK app store. That’s more like it. If this works, other operators should follow the same model – and actually specifically use Ovi Store as that will net the greatest rewards.

Finally, it would be a real fallacy to think that all is bright and breezy in iPhone apps land. Cos it really, really isn’t. And discoverability is part of the problem. There are now so many apps in the app store, that most developers have a real struggle to be found. In your example, you *knew the name* and what the app did, so of course you found it quickly. Most apps are not already known by most of their potential users. That’s Huge Problem 1. Huge Problem 2 is Apple’s app approval process is now completely out of control and collapsing rapidly.
Read this:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/03/07/would_be_iphone_developers_pulling_their_hair_out_by_the_roots.html
and this:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/03/apple-has-no-clue-whats-going-on-with-dev-contracts.ars

in short, new apps have a monumental struggle to even get in the iPhone app store. Let alone be discovered somehow. And if an app can’t be discovered in the iPhone app store without being super popular already, or the name known, then a developer is looking at a huge and expensive marketing campaign. And where’s the money coming from for that?

iPhone app store is not the goose that lays the golden eggs that you and others think it is I’m afraid Ewan. As a developer I’m betting on Ovi app store, as the numbers alone (300-400 million new *potential* customers a year, for content that’s not just apps) mean far greater chance of success, and ROI.

Alex
phonething.com

Something else to consider – there are no shortage of old, crap phones. Should we (as developers & networks) cater to them or wait until they all upgrade to an iPhone?

That's never going to happen. Besides, people with crap phones still buy games, ringtones, apps, etc. It's harder to develop for such a diverse range of underpowered devices – but I think it's a challenge worth taking up.

Operator app stores aren't wonderful – and it's hard to get your content on them. We've been too long in changing because we've been focused on big deals with big companies. That's no longer a perfect business model.

T
[Not speaking for Vodafone, my benevolent employer]

There's a ton of great content included, mostly not needing connectivity. Lots of potential to do future movie purchase tie-ins… http://www.allaboutiphone.net/2009/03/the-unbor…