Products & Services

New apps and new tips (BONUS: Old gripes)

By Charlie on 21 August 2009

BOSTON, USA – A scan of the web keeps not only revealing new apps coming to Ovi Store (Shazam is one of the more recent biggies), but that whole new markets are showing up. Inside I have three sets of apps recently added to the Ovi Store that suggest that a nice range of choices is starting to evolve and emerge out of the pool.

I’ll then wrap up this post with a new Nokia tips and tricks site and a bonus – gripes.

Videos, and books
The Ovi Store has your usual set of apps and stuff – weather, social networking, games, wallpapers, and so on. We’ve recently read that a popular ebook community, Wattpad, is now available through the Ovi Store. And if you’re not one to be reading on a mobile, there’s also an app called Vid Store, for the Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, that gives access to feature movies like Eagle Eye and Iron Man.

While I am not huge on reading books or watching videos on my mobile (a story for another day), I do know that a ton of folk are big on this. It’s nice to know that the Ovi Store is providing more sources of videos to see and books to read. It’s all about choice, isn’t it?

Tips and tricks
Here’s a shout out to the newest site to offer advice on how to get the most out of your Nokia device, Nokia Tips [via AAS]. A scan of the tips already shows topics ranging from “apps to tweak your smartphone,” “tips to stretch your battery life,” and “how to customize Gravity’s alert sounds.”

Good luck and best wishes on growing the new site!

BONUS: Useless phone notifications
Dotsisx, in her straightforward manner, wrote a great post on annoying system warnings on Symbian devices. Ranging from “are you sure?” to “do you want to activate Bluetooth in offline mode?” the discussion set off by the post is a great read on probing the psychology of the geniuses who design the software.

I will admit that there are some folks at Nokia, vigilantes, really, who walk around with one of those big whack-a-mole mallets to pound any useless dialog box to oblivion. But, obviously, there’s only so much they can bash. On the other side, I’ve seen nasty unintended consequences when warning dialogs had been removed. So, beware of what you wish for.

Like one of the commentors said, there are reasons those prompts are there. Also, the phone might be smart, but it isn’t human smart. Though would it be too much to have it be as smart as a puppy [hat tip Matt Jones for infecting me with this thought]?

Image from trix0r

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Lloyd Says:
August 21st, 2009 at 8:18 pm

The is no Vid Store in Ovi at all. What we get is a screen that says the item is no longer available. Typical for the Ovi Store. I can’t count the number of times an announcement is made that a new app is available only to receive the “item no longer available” screen.

Frustrating as can be and if the iPhone was more of a phone and less of a toy I would switch in a heartbeat!

Lloyd Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

Still no Vid Store in Ovi Store NAM. Is it anywhere else?

Keith Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 3:25 am

Movies cost money, so I’m afraid that I won’t be interested in downloading them from the Ovi Store anytime soon. It’s not that I don’t want to spend money, it’s just that I won’t be spending it at the Ovi Store until you can redownload purchased applications without paying for them again. I do see that several folks who have run into this problem are getting their satisfaction, but they have to work through a Nokia Care rep individually and send their receipt numbers (example: http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/discussions/board/message?board.id=ovi&thread.id=1707). That’s too much pain and uncertainty to be worth the trouble, especially when I’m on my 2nd reflash in 3 months and the phone is already going flakey again, randomly rebooting every day. I’m not buying something only to have to jump through hoops to get it back again next week when I will probably relent and reflash the firmware.