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.

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.

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...

The little cafe down my street “has a potential market of 6 million customers from all across London”. So bloody what!

regards
Steve, iTAGG “the sms provider that can help you reach 3 billion mobiles worldwide”