Products & Services
The scoop on Nokia Ovi Suite for Mac
By Charlie on 18 November 2008
ESPOO, Finland – We’d spoken before about how Nokia devices work with Macs. But we also suggested that there might be more coming down the line. And there is.
Marko Lindgren, Senior Product Manager in the Ovi Desktop group in Nokia Software and Services, granted me a few moments to explain what he’s up to with Mac desktop software, what it takes to get this through Nokia, when things might happen, and some other interesting tidbits.
See the video, below, for more.
Macs at Nokia
Marko is part of a small group of people at Nokia who are making Mac software. As he says in the video, Nokia is quite focused on Windows computers. Lots of us use Macs in our daily work, but have to work really hard to justify having a Mac over a Windows box (please, no flames here, it’s easier now than a few years ago). Naturally, it then becomes hard to justify making Mac desktop software at a scale that matters for Nokia to make the investment.
Fortunately, Marko is proof that the company sees a benefit in creating Mac desktop software (also, internally, it is allowed, even though not easily). And, as we get deeper into making Mac software, I hope that things are successful enough to open up the company a bit more to Mac use (yes, this is self-serving).
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November 18th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Yippee! A job ad already gave this away (http://www.renegadefanboy.com/2008/10/nokia-is-working-on-the-ovi-suite-for-mac/), but I’m really happy that it is actually happening rather sooner than later!
Kudos to Marko!
(Sorry for the amount of smileys and exclamations – but this is really exciting. Any help needed to make this happen?)
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November 18th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Just a question to your statement Charlie. “Nokia is quite focused on Windows computers”. why is that exactly? For the benefit of the consumer should services be offered on multiple platforms (and here’s wishful thinking) and offered at the same time?
But I am glad to finally see that things are in the works. Thanks Marko!!!
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November 18th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I’m with Darla here, Nokia should be personal computer agnostic and should care about wanting to make their customer’s happy not seriously aggrovated by their PC-only stance.
Nokia is a mobile company who is stepping in to web-services. Take all the products to the web and make them device-agnostic.
Now we are arguing about PC v. Mac here, but Charlie & Co. have spent the last month arguing for the 1100 Club and emerging markets, which if Nokia is series about serving the emerging markets with mobile and web services then EVERYTHING needs to be device agnostic – be that device a Nokia mobile, a PC, a Mac, a linux box, or an Xbox that accesses the web.
Farmers in India and tailors in Sierra Leone are not accessing web services via their PC or Mac, but via their Nokia.
As a web professional in California who is Mac only, I would prefer to have Nokia services that would sync and work with my Mac, but maybe we should be stepping away from thinking about mobile to computer interaction and instead thinking about mobile to web service interaction and then web service to computer, of which then it wouldn’t matter if one’s computer is Mac or PC or Linux or…
Thus:
Mobile Device Nokia Web Service Computer
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November 18th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Can I spell this morning? Can I use the Preview button. No, obviously not…
3rd line, 1st paragragh, should be ‘aggravated’.
3rd line, 3rd paragraph, should be ’serious’.
2nd line, last paragraph, Typepad stripped my less than/ greater than signs.
So, I will rephrase the diagram as follows:
Mobile Device – Nokia Web Service – Computer
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March 15th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
It’s the middle of March ‘09 and no word about Ovi for Mac – nothing even on the Nokia beta site. I’m wondering if this is one of those projects that’s announced and quickly forgotten? In all honesty, this not a major software project for a company of this size.
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charlie Reply:
March 20th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
@globalist, He said that it would be out ’sometime in 2009′, so March might still be early.
And, no, it’s not been forgotten (nor was there any announcement).
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March 18th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Where can i download the ovi suite for mac?
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charlie Reply:
March 20th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
@Diego Schoening, It’s not available right now. Let’s all be patient (I want it too!).
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April 3rd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Is there any news on this matter?
I would love to see OVI suite for mac anytime soon!!!
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charlie Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 11:34 am
@Jeff, no news.
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June 20th, 2009 at 7:38 am
oh my god, can’t wait for it to be out soon…
my n79 is not working properly with the iSync eventhough with the plugins for n79 is installed…
hope it will come out soon!
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July 9th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
We’ll, it’s summer and still waiting for that Ovi for Mac suite. Any minute? Can’t believe a company of Nokia’s size and scope can’t get this out – even in beta. And there isn’t even a word from the company about it. Kind of sad; says a lot about what’s happening at the big N.
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August 30th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Now Linux only remains without OVI…
I think it’ll rocks!…
Oh…Yes, I use my Linux distro as a home desktop & entertainment software for my pc…
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August 30th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Now Linux only remains without OVI…
I think it’ll rock!…
Oh…Yes, I use my Linux distro as desktop home pc (office suite, various software to play music, videos, see dvds, etc) …
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September 15th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
ok, where is it? where is the ovi for mac? I choose the n97 instead of the iphone because of the “coming soon” system for mac, so, where is it?!
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Charlie Reply:
September 17th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Good question. It’s been a while, and though they said by end of this year, I am worried as we actually approach the end of the year.
I’ll dig around on this one once more.
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September 18th, 2009 at 9:54 am
This is the problem with nokia. You’re just too slow. If the N97 is supposed to be serious contender to the iPhone then where’s the mac support?
You need to have simpler approach to things. Your software is complicated, your interface is not as seamless, etc. Your Music Store is another disappointment. No mac support, lots of steps to actually get to the music!
C’mon Nokia! up your game! You are starting to look like Microsoft!
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October 15th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
C’mon Nokia, what’s the deal? Is there going to be an Ovi Suite for Mac? or not?
It was recently reported that Apple has 91% of the market for computers in the $1000+ range. So it would make sense that a lot of the people buying expensive smartphones like the N97 would also have an Apple computer, and it follows that if Nokia wants to compete in this market segment they need a Mac version of Ovi Suite.
Nokia, Please provide us with an update?
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