I’ve been banging the drum for the platform. Although I’m sure a few folk at Nokia don’t quite believe it. I remember back in 2009 — or was it 2010? — I gave a presentation to the TechCrunch Europe GeeknRolla event making it clear that Ovi would go places — that download figures would increase, that developers would start to make money from it.

I’m pleased to have been right!

In recent times I’ve been enjoying getting the milestone releases. The next one is just in today. The headline figure? 5 million downloads a day, 40,000 applications in the store — and more than 158 developers have done 1 million+ downloads already.

It’s working!

Here’s the full release. Have a look at some of the statistics (I’ve bolded some points I think are key).

- – - – -

Nokia’s Ovi Store hits 5 million downloads per day as users enjoy new Symbian devices and apps

- Up to 5 million downloads per day

- More than 40 000 apps represents nearly eight-fold growth in one year

- 158 developers pass 1 million downloads each

Espoo, Finland – Nokia today announced that its Ovi Store has grown by nearly eight times over the last year and now reaches up to 5 million downloads per day, propelled by the latest Symbian devices – the Nokia N8, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7 and Nokia E7 – which account for about 15 percent of the daily downloads.

“Feeling stressed over not having the time to be a domestic Goddess?

In this week’s episode, which is the final of the series (sniff sniff) our Lady Geeks have discovered apps that will help you become a master chef while juggling your busy lifestyle.

Being the final episode we have a special guest for our app of the week… the queen of property… Sarah Beeny. Her new app Tepilo from Ovi is fantastic if you’re thinking about buying or selling your house.

We also have Ovi’s River Cottage Every Day app from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, which suggests seasonal food and recipes, offers answers to culinary questions, and has a guide to sourcing local food.

For those confused between the rump and the shank Ask the Butcher app is perfect for you. From diagrams and descriptions on cuts of meat, to recipes and cooking times this app is here to help.

To be in with a chance to win a fantastic Nokia C6 watch carefully to spot our Lady Geek logo appear somewhere in the episode. Once you’ve spotted her, write where you saw it under this video on our Facebook page.

If you haven’t already, join the Lady Geek community on Facebook.com/ladygeektv and Twitter @ladygeektv and see how we make technology more fun.

Thank you for your support over series 3, we hope you have APP-reciated it.”

“Is your high-pressure job getting to you? You need to take it easy – to “chillax” even… and what better way to kick-back than with some of the finest games on your smart phone. This week the Lady Geeks and their lovely assistant Keith Chegwin (yes, THAT Keith Chegwin) investigate the nightmarish world of Papa Sangre – the game you play through your ears (if that makes any sense) – watch a grown woman challenge a pineapple in FruitNinja which is this week’s app of the week and thrill at our amazing re-creation of Ovi’s Doodle Jump.

To be in with a chance to win a fantastic Nokia C6 watch carefully to spot our Lady Geek logo appear somewhere in the episode. Once you’ve spotted her, you must ‘like’ our Facebook page (Facebook.com/ladygeektv) and write where you saw it under the video.

If you haven’t already, join the Lady Geek community on Facebook/ladygeektv and Twitter @ladygeektv and see how we make technology more fun.”

Check it out.

“Bonjourno!

This week the Lady Geeks bring out your inner linguist. We give you the power to translate on-the-go! Ovi’s new Multitranslate and Language Master help you speak the native tongue to save you from sounding like you’re speaking in tongues whilst abroad…

Our App of the week is Pixelpipe, a wonderful app that allows you to upload pictures and videos to your blog by the touch of a button.

To be in with a chance to win a fantastic Nokia C6 watch carefully to spot our Lady Geek logo appear somewhere in the episode. Once you’ve spotted her, write where you saw it under this video on our Facebook page – Facebook.com/ladygeektv.

If you haven’t already, join the Lady Geek community on Facebook/ladygeektv and Twitter @ladygeektv and see how we make technology more fun.”

At the MEF Americas 2010 Content & Commerce event in Miami recently I sat down with Nokia’s top Ovi man, Marco Argenti, to ask him about Ovi Life Tools.

Whilst most of us in the West are busy obsessing over whether or not we’ve got to the next level with Angry Birds, the vast majority of the world’s mobile users are actually depending on their technology to help, rather than entertain. Life Tools is a good example. Think tools for agriculture, education, health and basic email communications. These are critical services for those who depend on the technology in such a different way that we do here in the West.

Ovi Life Tools is one of Nokia’s most laudable achievements and is live in numerous countries including Indonesia, China and Nigeria. Have a watch of Marco’s video to find out more.

At the MEF Americas 2010 Content & Commerce event in Miami recently I sat down with Nokia’s top Ovi man, Marco Argenti, to ask him about how things were going with the platform.

In a measure of how quickly things are progressing, the stat he gave in this video (over 3 million downloads per day) is now out of date — and that’s in just 3 weeks! The Ovi Store is now getting in excess of 3.5 million downloads each day.

Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

I’m delighted that he said yes so here we go…

- – - – -

Q: First, could you give us an overview of your role at Nokia? Who are you, what is it that you do?

Marco: I am Vice President of Content and Consumer Engagement at Nokia. My role is to ensure we engage consumers with great content and great experiences through Ovi store, Ovi Maps, Ovi Music and Ovi Messaging. My team and I work with leading content providers to create and provide compelling mobile experiences which seamlessly marry your real world with your virtual mobile world.

Q: You spoke heavily about the importance of ‘context’ in mobile — what do you mean by this?

Marco: Context is most definitely king in the mobile space. In fact, I say that context is the new URL right now. The virtual world doesn’t need a web address. What would have been a URL previously is now replaced with ‘context’; it’s where you are, what you like and what you want to do that determines what’s happening and what’s available around you, what your friends are suggesting, what’s creating buzz and interest. We’re continually working to deliver you the information and experiences you want here and now, via your mobile, to bring together your real world and your virtual world into one seamless, real time experience.

Q: What are you doing to bring more of a contextual experience to your customers? How will that manifest itself for the average person purchasing a Nokia handset in 2011?

Marco: The Gig Finder App is a perfect example of a context-rich, real time experience delivered straight to you via your Nokia device. The App uses Ovi Maps to locate exactly where you are, while a recommendation engine searches your on-device Ovi Music collection to push you real-time information on gigs and music events which are local to you. This virtual experience is then brought straight into your real world with easy on-device ticket purchase, maps to locate the gig, and the ability to check-in and share your experience via social networks while you’re there.

This is just one example of how we’re leveraging context to deliver powerful experiences to our customers. Our new version of Ovi Maps, just being released, takes this concept even further by integrating local events, guides, reviews and reservations from partners such as Lonely Planet, Trip Advisor, Time Out and giving you the ability to select a place, book it, and get direction how to drive/walk or use public transport to get there – all seamlessly integrated into the experience.

Where part does Qt play across Nokia’s device range?

Marco: Our move to a unified Qt / QML developer framework will enable our ecosystem of developers to develop once and distribute to a huge variety of Nokia devices, so Qt is going to play a very important role in driving great experiences for our consumers, while continuing to drive the business opportunities for our partners.

Talking of Qt, How is the Ovi Store performing? Could you give us a run down on some recent highlights?

Marco: We’re coming to the end of a great year for Ovi Store. We’ve seen our daily downloads hit 3.5 million, a million more than in mid-September,  and more than 250,000 new users signing up to Ovi every day. Better still, our ecosystem is getting richer and we’ve seen more than 1.5 million downloads of our Qt SDK this year, and more than 400,000 developers signing to Nokia in the past 12 months or so.

Finally — in a nod to the forthcoming Festive Season — I couldn’t let you go without this question: What gadget(s) will be in your stocking this year?

Marco: I’ll be giving my wife a Nokia N8 (I’m safe saying this here as she works in another industry!) , and I’ll be giving myself a brand new pair of Nokia BH-905 headphones with active noise cancellation – perfect for cranking out the music flying!

And, slightly predictable I know, but what third-party Ovi apps have come to your attention recently?

Marco: I love games, and some of the new titles available for the N8 are quite impressive and a lot of fun to play. Angry Birds Season from Rovio which is now a classic, Galaxy on Fire from Fishlabs and Avatar from Gameloft are at the top of my personal list.  In terms of evergreens, Swype (a gesture based text entry) and Rompl – a music remix application – and Shazam – recognizing which music is playing in the background and allowing you to download it from Ovi – remain some of my all time favorites.
- – - – -

Brilliant — thank you for taking the time Marco!

Standby for Marco’s videos coming shortly…

The system enables you to make an application for your website or blog feed in no time at all. Literally minutes. The resulting app is branded with your supplied logos and feeds — and it works on almost every Nokia Ovi compatible device.

After a few weeks of the application being live, I was delighted to see that we’d had a few hundred users mess around with the app.

Fast forward 3 months and goodness me, I can scare believe my eyes.

Our app is rocking! Rocking, I tell you!

Now, I’m sure Rafe Blandford and the All About Symbian team will be ripping it up on a heck of a lot more users, but I’m delighted to see such massive numbers for something that’s frankly rather boring for your average consumer.

You can hardly be misled into clicking on it, can you? I mean it’s pretty self explanatory. It’s not as if it’s called ‘Free Sky One Live TV’ or ‘Naked Girls TV’. 7,000 folk in the last 30 days have clicked on to the app. So if you’ve actually got a consumer brand, chances are — by this example — it should get some good awareness on the Ovi Store.

Here are the headline stats:

And here are the slightly more in-depth ones:

Come on!

Now, yes, one would imagine that the ‘average per user’ page views doesn’t entirely bode well. Two page loads, eh?

Still, I’m delighted.

If you haven’t created an app for your site or feed, definitely, definitely think about it.

Repeat after me: Nokia users are not second class citizens.

You can create an account on Ovi App Wizard in about 30 seconds. It’s entirely free and you can have your app created and sent into (free) review in minutes. Again, it’s entirely free to submit your apps. No fees or anything. And you can submit as many as you wish. You should see your app approved and live within a few days.

Head over to Ovi App Wizard and get started.

I caught this post by Stuart Dredge over on Mobile Entertainment. He sat in on panel at this week’s MIPCOM event in Cannes. Stuart points out that Cedric Thomas, the chap who heads up Nokia’s Ovi services in France, delivered a delightfully direct assessment of his (and Nokia’s) suggested developer App Store strategy.

Cedric’s key statement:

- Apple is a must have in US and EU
- Nokia is key for Asian market (including China) and Europe
- Android is leading the US market and growing in EU
- BlackBerry strong in US

Stuart comments that he found Cedric’s honesty refreshing and that is represented, ‘a clear sign that Nokia has largely ditched its traditional bullishness, in favour of a more realistic appraisal of its position in the apps market.’

Agreed.

I’d like to see more of this.

The disarmingly honest approach should help the Nokia-Is-Shit crowd (i.e. most of the marketplace) recognise that whilst they’ve lost they way in the West, they are steaming ahead in what we traditionally refer to as the developing countries.

The Ovi Store is now running at an average of 2.5 million downloads per day — which, if extrapolated across 365 days, equates to just under a billion downloads. That number is only going to get larger and larger.

And what’s the make-up of those downloads?

75% of those downloads are apps and games, with games the most popular category for paid downloads, and apps the most popular for free downloads.

Keep a watch on Nokia.

It’s ridiculously easy to use. Just register and get started testing out — all you need is an RSS feed to begin. And it’s free.

I published Mobile Industry Review’s app a while ago and I’m delighted that it’s still getting a lot of use. Indeed, in the last 7 days, it’s had 104 users and 419 page views. I decided to create a dedicated Mobile Developer TV app with the wizard … because I can. And because it’s toooooo easy. I think I created it in about 5 minutes flat.

And it’s doing very well. Much better than Mobile Industry Review actually. Here are the headline stats:

Wooo.

Do check out the Ovi App Wizard. And if you’d like to see a video of me making the MIR one, check this post out.

Thanks to OscarB for pointing out that the Mobile Industry Review app has made the Ovi App Wizard frontpage. I wonder if that’s because I recently updated our Ovi Store application with a dedicated Nokia news feed for any posts tagged with the word ‘nokia’. This post should be right at the top in that feed actually.

If you haven’t downloaded the MIR Ovi Store app, I reckon you should at least have a look. Search for ‘mobile industry review’ on the Ovi Store or visit this URL: http://store.ovi.com/content/36459

Recently someone described me on Twitter as ‘pro-Nokia’. Like you’d label someone ‘right-wing’ or ‘left-wing’. I can’t find the tweet but it really stuck with me. I am a fundamental fan of the company and I very much respect a lot of the talented people who work there. But I think a better label for me would be ‘Frustrated-Pro-Nokia’, or something like that.

I have been debating with other Nokia fans, across the months, about Nokia’s ridiculous policy of standing in front of the mobile crowd and letting folk carve out chunks of flesh without doing anything. Or releasing a fuddy-duddy press release in response. Or worse, suing Apple. It’s a bit late in the day for that.

The frustrating stand-and-stare approach is causing the company untold amounts of reputation damage. It is almost comical to watch — so much so that I’m writing this post for documentary purposes, just so that it will look good as a screenshot in my next presentation that I give to the financiers and analysts chaps in about 6-12 months.

The company needs to get in the game. They need to let their PR and marketing people off the chain. The company has expertise and capabilities in spades. It’s got super-effective people, ready to go to bat for the company, ready to take the gloves off, ready to jump in and aggressively defend the company.

Right now, there’s no defence needed.

No.

This is the shocking bit.

The company often isn’t even considered. This is what I find most shocking. Would you like some proof? Well then, here we go.

The name Mary Meeker will, I’m sure, ring a bell. She works for Morgan Stanley in their Technology Research department and has a track record of producing interesting, thought-provoking perspective. Andy on the MoMoEdinburgh news group posted this link to the biennial Morgan Stanley Research Presentation on Internet Trends, published this week.

A few slides into the deck, I noticed this one:

It’s titled:

“Mobile Internet Ramping Faster Than Desktop Internet Did – Apple Leading Charge”

The slide shows the growth of iPhone and iTouch clearly ‘ramping faster’ than Desktop Internet, along side AOL, NTT docomo and so on.

I fully appreciate that the graph is meant to illustrate mobile internet and that the author has simply selected iPhone/iTouch to make their point.

But the assumption that ‘proper’ mobile internet means Apple is … well, it’s reflecting of the prevailing wisdom. Further, it demonstrates that when people think Nokia, they think rubbish-phone, especially in North America.

And that’s a problem when you’ve got the online/mainstream media thinking this.

It’s an even bigger problem when you’ve got serious analysts working on that basis too.

Nokia has arguably got more internet connected mobile-internet capable devices on the market that anyone else, period. Who’s reminding Mary? Who’s reminding the rest of the marketplace, the media, the consumers, the tech influencers?

The company isn’t even front of mind. It’s worse than an also-ran.

This isn’t just down to the company’s products. It’s easy to forget that millions of people really do enjoy using their Nokia phones — and that although they don’t have the razzmatazz of Apple or the Android crowd, their devices invariably work reliably. And there’s been a ton of work to bring the company into the next generation. Qt, the open-sourcing of Symbian, the free navigation platform, the Ovi Store innovations — they’re working hard. The trouble is, waiting ’til next year to really get stuck into the game will be far, far too late.

Their PR and marketing teams should be out canvassing support, excitement, delight — continually. And they should be coming down like a ton of bricks on people making inaccurate or misleading statements about the marketplace (by forgetting or overlooking Nokia). The company doesn’t need to play the same game as Apple. It just needs to step up to the plate and actually get stuck in.

Anyway.

Note to self: Remember to take a screenshot of this post for posterity in the months to come.

If you’re interested in flicking through Mary’s presentation, I’ve embedded it below. (Nokia does feature, but only to act as the shoulders for Apple to stand upon).

[Well, I did embed it, but the original file at slideshare has been removed]

Last week I sat down for 20 minutes and created an Ovi Store application for Mobile Industry Review. It allows you to browse the MIR feed and the Mobile Developer TV youtube feed.

I did this using the all new Ovi App Wizard which is simply fantastic. It takes a series of RSS feeds that you supply, along with a logo and a few colours and — boom — creates a stand-alone Symbian mobile application. For free.

The wizard is an excellent piece of engineering.

In practice, you can actually have a rough application created in the App Wizard in about 20-30 seconds. However I flipped open Fireworks and got a bit creative with the logos to make sure I was entirely happy. I decided to make the application free — but I could have just as easily told Nokia to charge for it!

Once I’d created the app in the wizard, I then pressed ‘publish to Ovi’. And boom. Job done. A few days later I got a notification to say that my Ovi Publish account was active and that my first application was approved and live.

Get in!

I’ve already had 22 page views and 5 users!

(It only went live this morning)

So if you have a Nokia handset nearby, check out the app and see what you think. Here’s the direct url: http://store.ovi.com/content/36457

If you’d like to mobilise your content into the Ovi Store with the App Wizard, it’s literally a piece-of-simplicity. And free. Here’s that url: http://www.oviappwizard.com/

Excellent work, Nokia!

Right then, this is genius! The ability to record my OWN voice navigation instructions? Bring. It. On!

Have a read:

Tired of the same old “Turn left”? Now that navigation is free in Ovi Maps you can create your own drive guidance instructions and share them with friends and family. Cheer up your loved ones’ dull morning commute or do your best pirate voice for a friend – Own Voice for Ovi Maps lets you say it your way! Own Voice for Ovi Maps requires the latest version of Ovi Maps installed on your device.

This is going straight on my N86 8MB. I love the fact that once I’ve recorded my 53 scottish-themed See-You-Jimmy driving instructions, I can upload the voice pack to Ovi Maps so that the 10 million other Ovi Maps users can each benefit from my voice pack.

“Irn Bru Ewan”, I think that’s what I’ll call my voice pack

If you’d like to record your own voice pack, it’s really simple. Here are the instructions:

Find a quiet space to record, then let the app take you through each of the 53 required commands including the penultimate “You have reached your destination”. When you’re done recording, you simply add your name, save and the voice pack is uploaded to the Own Voice website meaning that others can also choose your voice to direct them en route.

I’m really looking forward to modifying the hugely annoying ‘Turn around when possible‘ message into something a little bit more… fragrant.

Download to your Nokia device with this URL: http://store.ovi.com/content/34132

The chances are that you haven’t come across Offscreen Technologies, especially if — like most of the marketplace — you are naturally focused on the iPhone and Android platforms.

Offscreen are similar to many popular mobile developers you might care to mention. They create games, productivity apps and general entertainment/fun apps. The only difference is that Offscreen focus on Nokia’s Ovi Store. And that focus has resulted in 25 million downloads from 110 countries in about a year.

They are prolific. Just a quick glance down their product list reveals 50+ apps available for purchase. The company focuses on apps for Nokia’s touch devices, like the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97, Nokia X6 and Nokia N900.

Several Offscreen Technologies apps have been downloaded more than million times each, like Level Touch, Bright Light Touch and Labyrinth Lite Touch.

So when you’re waking at 4am in the morning, sweat pouring off your brow, worrying about the ridiculous competition on the iTunes App Store, do think about companies like Offscreen who are focusing on the Ovi Store. They are currently eating your breakfast, lunch, dinner and having a little bit of desert wine, followed by some port, thanks to the fact you’re too busy stuffing the iTunes App Store with 17 different iFart apps to compete with them elsewhere.

Of course, I’m certainly not suggesting that rushing your apps into the Ovi Store will make you a millionaire overnight. Instead, I want to be clear that there is substantial opportunity with the likes of the Ovi Store and other platforms, simply because everyone else is focusing on iPhone and Android.

Congratulations Offscreen — and it’s time for a tip of the hat again to the Ovi Store team who must be beginning to smile. I look forward to more good news in the future!

And if you need pointing in the right direction for other platforms, drop me a note, I’m happy to help and well connected.

Tomorrow I’m giving a talk at TechCrunch Europe’s GeeknRolla event on the subject of getting big fast in mobile. One of the companies I’ll be looking at is Nokia. I most definitely understand and empathise with the pained expressions I witness whenever I mention the company to mobile developers, however the company’s size and handset volume, together with the fact that almost every handset leaving their factory now comes with Ovi Store pre-installed, means they’re shortly about to become a big, big force in mobile applications.

Here’s an example.

Numo Mobile are the company behind an array of interesting Symbian applications. The one that’s of note today is their app, SMS Preview, which I’ve been using for a long time on multiple handsets.

It does exactly as the name suggests — gives you a preview of your incoming text messages.

Today Nokia announced that Ovi Store users have downloaded SMS Preview over a million times.

A *million* times.

Congratulations to all at Numo. And good work Ovi Store team.

SMS Preview is free and you can download it via the Ovi Store at this url: http://store.ovi.com/content/5165

Good, good news. Excellent proof point for Nokia, especially after the recent news that Nimbuzz knocked by a million downloads via Ovi in February.

This is good news for the legions of 71 and 66 users. Bad news for TomTom’s share price. Again.

I’d like to draw your attention to the Nokia press release announcing this news. Look how personal it is. I really do like this personable style:

GLOBAL – You spoke, we listened: Free walk and drive navigation is now available for the Nokia E71 and Nokia E66. The latest version of Ovi Maps with free walk and drive navigation has been available on a range of devices such as the Nokia E72, Nokia N97 mini, and X6 since January. After listening to customer feedback though, the Ovi Maps team has created a version that works on Nokia E71 and Nokia E66.

People will be able to use Ovi Suite to side load the latest country maps onto their devices so they can enjoy offline map browsing alongside free navigation. The process of making the latest version of Ovi Maps available for existing devices is quite involved, but the team managed to include complete navigation functionality. Due to technical constraints in back porting the app to existing devices, unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to offer further premium content such as Guide Michelin and Lonely Planet guides. These two devices will also be the last of our S60 3.1 and older devices to sport this version of Ovi Maps. But every upcoming Nokia Smartphone will come with free walk and drive navigation out of the box.

These two Eseries devices join the recently compatible Nokia N86 8MP.

The update is available now from Nokia.com/maps, and will also be available in Ovi Store.

Ovi Maps compatible devices include the Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia E72, Nokia 5230, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 6730 classic, Nokia X6, Nokia N86 8MP and (with slightly different functionality) the Nokia E71, and Nokia E66.

Head over to www.nokia.com/maps to download the update.

Thankfully Wikipedia explains that Easter is officially based around Sunday April 4th.

At Easter, of course, quite a few people start traveling. If you’re planning a trip, may I prompt you to give Nokia’s Ovi Maps the time of day and check it out? I’m pretty sure they’ve got you covered. The all new version recently released offers:

- Free turn-by-turn voice guided walk and drive navigation available for 74 countries in 46 languages, as well as detailed maps for over 180 countries
F- ree premium content, including access to Lonely Planet and Michelin travel guides for over 1,000 world-wide destinations with listings for sights, restaurants, hotels, shops, nightlife and more
- Integrated recommendations, so whether you are looking for the best coffee shop, a top museum or a hidden gem only the locals know about, the guides will make sure you find your way.
- No need to know the street names – just search for ‘coffee’ and the top venues near you pop up.
- Maps can also be pre-loaded, saving time and money on data charges, so once maps are on your phone you can find what you want when you want it

Put that in your TomTom and smoke it.

Give it a go on any long journeys you’ve got planned and let me know how you get on?

If you’d like to hire the team that built and created Garmin Connect, the world’s largest repository of recorded GPS activities, then today is your lucky day.

Garmin decided to shut down operations at its San Francisco office just over a month ago — and thus move all Garmin Connect management and development back to Nowheresville, Some State. (Olathe, Kansas, if you wanted to know). Most of the Garmin Connect team aren’t bothering with the relocation.

So they’ve knocked up a site to showcase their talents, talk about Garmin Connect and how they built it.

If you’re in the market for a location-based team of geniuses, you can hire them as one team, ready to rock. Given how hot location is at the moment, I doubt the team will be waiting long.

Every success, team!

The site you need: http://thegcteam.com/

Here’s the video…

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Christof Hellmis is a highly affable and passionate chap. I believe Rafe had met him quite a few times before, but our interview at Mobile World Congress was my first opportunity to say hello. When I say Christof is passionate, he perhaps doesn’t necessarily display it in the traditional sense (e.g. arms waving, spluttering with delight). Instead he’s calm, confident, direct — you’ll see in Part 1, the first question we asked was ‘Tell us about the Ovi Maps 3.0 launch’ (where Nokia announced free maps and navigation).

Christof’s immediate response?

“For us, January 21st was a lifetime milestone…”

Right then. My kind of guy! So if you’re into mobile maps and navigation and the possibilities surrounding the technology, these two videos will be of supreme interest.

Here’s Part 1:

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And then, Part 2:

Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

But the Ovi Store?

Oh dear.

Here’s just one indication why it’s struggling.

I clicked the Ovi Store icon on my N86 earlier today. It’s just a link. The Ovi Store App wasn’t pre-installed on my device — instead, click the icon and woosh, it loads the web browser and then navigates to the web-based Ovi Store.

This is ok.

I’m not entirely impressed at the fact it couldn’t be factory installed — but at least there’s an icon.

Instead of being transported to the Ovi Store website, I got this screen:

“Did you know there’s a faster way to browse the Ovi Store?” asks the text prompt.

I sure did.

I was delighted. Brilliant. I was being offered the Ovi Store app for download.

Good thinking Nokia.

I clicked the ‘YES!’ link.

Here’s the next screen:

Yes… that item is unavailable.

Total bollocks.

It’s not a massive problem for me, personally. I’m the geek — I can put up with navigating around the Ovi website. I can press ‘back’ and carry on. I understand errors happen and am reasonably tolerant provided I can find a work-around.

But for the normob who’s already frightened to hell by the Nokia experience, this kind of service level is dire.

We know that Nokia is trying to evolve itself into a services company — indeed, I sat in front of Mr Savander himself who explained the capacity issues that played havoc with the launch day — but this user experience is simply unacceptable.

If I was from Apple, I’d be looking at this and … you know what, I wouldn’t be laughing. This is beyond funny.

It’s beyond, ‘ha ha, aren’t they shit’.

Nokia has a 52.5 billion dollar market cap (just slightly smaller than the combined market caps of both Motorola and RIM).

It’s no joke.

What is it going to take for Nokia to deliver a reliable and exciting Ovi Store experience?

Can’t somebody at Ovi hire a few more testers or something and get the basics right?

Just the other week we brought you news of Ovi mail coming to more than 35 of their Series 40 mobile phones, now the beta has been rolled out worldwide.

According to Nokia more than 110 million of their mobile phones can now have their own Ovi email addresses and accounts, with simple easy access and direct setup from the handset.

These free email accounts do not need a PC to be involved in what-so-ever but do offer the same functionality of one, as they mirror the likes of Gmail and their ilk. We also brought you news of this from Nokia World, which will be great venture for emerging markets on S40 mobiles.

Over the beta trial users in 12 countries, or languages based on those regions will be able to take part in the initial run. These range from English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Hindi, Bengali, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia.

The latter of which just screams it’s ripe for those markets we mentioned earlier, we firmly believe.

They’ve already been running this trial since November to great success in India, Malaysia and the Philippines.

More phones have been scheduled by Nokia for those types of countries, which we also brought you news on of late – seen here.

With over 75-percent of the world’s population having never used email, it’s a great way to reach them.

Posted by email from MIR Live (posterous)

Here’s the proof.

Posted by email from MIR Live (posterous)