[Hands0n]

A salutory warning to those Nokia die-hards who are awaiting the N97 and what follows it as the supposed "iPhone killer" - arriving over two years too late, but thats another story altogether.

What is interesting, to me, is how there is a virtual silence over Ovi's very obvious continuing "teething problems" - for how long will people put up with it? Or have we all come to expect anything Nokia to not work properly at all, if ever? Contrast the hoo-ha that erupted with Apple's MobileMe that, admittedly, did rather wobble quite a lot at its launch. But within a month or so stability reigned, and the controversial Push functionality started to work correctly. Yet here we are, how long is it?, waiting for Ovi to settle down out of its teething issues.

Oh well, Nokia are the worlds leading mobile handset manufacturer. From such a position of strength and market dominance they really do not have to bother themselves with getting Ovi resolved quickly. Or do they?



Nokia's Ovi store is suffering from more teething problems as the site can't seen to keep itself online - though the company claims that users coming in direct from devices aren't experiencing problems.

Ovi is Nokia's answer to Apple's iTunes, offering a broader range of content to a broader range of handsets - or at least it would if it could stay up for more than five minutes and operated at a sensible speed when it was available. Comments from Reg readers would seem to belie the company's assurance that the on-device client is working fine, though we've found it stable if a little sluggish.

In a statement on the Ovi blog the company claims that "extraordinarily high spikes of traffic... resulted in some performance issues", but adds that more servers have now been added to resolve the issue, and that users coming into Ovi from their mobile handsets were unaffected. At the time of writing the Ovi site was back, having gone down at 12.20pm for several minutes, but as this article was being posted the service disappeared again leaving only an apology.


Not quite open for business
Ovi is nothing if not expansive in its ambition; the brand encompasses cloud synchronisation of contacts and diary, media sharing, music and games downloading as well as the application store that's getting all the attention. Music and games were folded into the Ovi brand from Nokia Music and N-Gage respectively, and both those services are still operational while the core of Ovi remains offline.

Teething problems are to be expected, but they must be addressed quickly as users' patience will quickly become exhausted. We're still trying to work out how Ovi compares to the competition and will give you a more comprehensive look at the service tomorrow - assuming it remains stable enough for us to do so.


Source Article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/27/ovi_down/

[getti]

Anything can have teething problems, look at Mobile Me when that started and that is a paid for service.

Give it time and all will be better, although if you have a look over at worldofnokia i have posted a very honest opinion on the Ovi Store launch or lack of!

[Hands0n]

Well thats my point, every man and his dog went mental when MobileMe started off flaky, only to be expected in such ventures. But it was fixed very quickly.

Nokia [claim to be] going through the same under-resourced (translation underinvested) systems and it all rather a quiet affair. Although the posted comments being posted on The Register from afflicted Ovi users tell the tale.

I would say "Of course" Ovi will get better - but such is Nokia software, it can take a very long time to do so. And it is not as if they are breaking new ground [as did Apple], rather they are following in well worn footsteps - clearly lessons have not been learned from others mistakes, errors or omissions.

Perhaps there will come a time when a Nokia user can hold their handset up to the likes of an iPhone or Google Android handset. For now they'll probably just have to sit quietly in the corner ... :)

[getti]

Il sit in the corner but wont be quiet, but not in the way you expect.... Myself and many others have been quite vocal on the poor launch of the OVI Store.

Apple have it nailed perfectly with iTunes and the App Store on the iPhone. I use iTunes for music on my Mac Mini and spent 30mins browsing the store and could have happily downloaded many apps on there, then just hook up the phone and sync it over. i don't have an iPhone but can see how easy they made it.

I cant see me spending more than 5 mins on the OVI Store without giving up at the moment... that is how I feel about it. OVI Store was supposed to be a BIG thing for Nokia but to me just looks like another basic OVI Service, nothing groundbreaking just there to be another tick box in a service they offer to keep up with others.

At work on the G1 and on the Magic I had from Vodafone i often check the Market to see what is around and install things time to time to check it out but with OVI i just lack interest.

So much so, when the new iPhone is announced if its available sim free I am certain I will be picking one up for my Vodafone SIM card to go into now they have MMS sorted out.

With at least 1 iPhone due VERY soon, and Android making a serious play into the Smartphone world with the G1, Magic and the Samsung i7500 due soon and not to mention what will be replacing the G1 on T-Mobile, Nokia need to have a serious think about their next move.

[Hands0n]

... Nokia need to have a serious think about their next move.

I agree completely - they cannot carry on with their half-baked development of software, both on-handset and off. I simply detest using their "array" of disparate apps that they've bundled into Nokia Sync. The Symbian OS has been plagued from day one, reportedly better these days, but I remain to be impressed by what I see in the latest N series handsets. These belong to another era altogether now.

If they carry the model across into the Nokia Cloud there will be few wanting to participate. I note on the comments section for the article I quoted above that even Devs are having trouble dealing with Ovi Store. That is not good at all. At least Apple and Google made sure that on day one there were hundreds of appealing and functional apps on their "store" platforms. Vital to ensure that first impressions were made well. Contrast Nokia who seem to have a corporate arrogance that suggests its customers will come anyhow, no matter how atrocious things are!

There really is no excuse for any of this. Nokia are at least two years behind Apple and so there is no need for them to rush to market with Ovi. They could have spent the time needed to get it right before plopping it into the customers hands. But then again, that is not Nokia's way. They have [a lot of] past history of deploying duff software, and no doubt will continue as they mean to go on :(

[Hands0n]

Talking of Symbian (to digress for a moment) ... It looks like V30 isn't all that it cracked up to be. Some comment from those who have upgraded from V20 to V30 are seen here (http://www.nokiausers.net/forum/symbian-s60v3/19144-possibility-downgrading-nokia-n95-v30-v20.html), demonstrating that Nokia V30 is likely to stuff up your N95.

Its all very well releasing newer and bigger software for handsets, but if it is not going to be performance enhancing, or at the very least hardware compatible, they just should not do it.

I would be very annoyed to put V30 on my N95s and find out that it broke them. I'm staying with V20, probably the last version that worked properly on the N95.

[Ben]

With Nokia software updates I always found that it was only worthwhile doing them while you had niggles with the handset. If everything works ok, and there's not a major new feature you're desperate to have, it's best not to bother!

iPhone updates seem a bit different... more worthwhile. Though tbh mine's going great guns so I'd be hesitant before even updating that!

Computer updates are a different kettle of fish, what with vulnerabilities more actively exploited.

[Hands0n]

Please let no one say that Nokia can compete on an even footing with either Apple or Google Android. Don't even begin to try :D


...
...
Selecting apps from the web site isn't any better, with customers having to log on, enter all their details and then have a hyperlink sent to their phone which requires them to repeat the whole log-on procedure and authorise the download (twice!) before they can run through the standard S60 installation procedure.

When it comes to competing with iTunes, Nokia has two significant problems - they have to support a range of handsets, and they don't have integrated desktop software. Ovi on the web loses much of it's integration and drops back to the complicated and cumbersome process that mobile software used to be before Apple showed how good the experience could be. But it's the web experience on which Ovi is being judged, and unless that can be radically improved, Ovi might never attract the support it needs to take on the chaps from Cupertino.
...
...

Full article: --> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/28/ovi_review/

"... take on the chaps from Cupertino" oh purleeze! This has all the attraction of popping rusty needles into one's eyes ...

[getti]

You need to add the quote they said of Ovi might never attract the support it needs to

Before your sentence as with it they agree OVI wont compete with Apple, but your message with not a full quote makes is sound like they are saying it CAN compete

[Hands0n]

You need to add the quote they said of Ovi might never attract the support it needs to

Before your sentence as with it they agree OVI wont compete with Apple, but your message with not a full quote makes is sound like they are saying it CAN compete

Not really ... I did leave the quote in full in the full cutting from the article and you'll note that I prefixed the final quote with "..." that indicates there is more before the edited out portion.

The reason I did that was to highlight the ridiculous behind the notion that Nokia could even begin to "compete with ...". Whether they attract the support or not, OVI as described is dead in the water before it even begins.

The archaic method [described] of getting an app from the web portal onto the handset defies belief! If that is Nokia's approach to competing with (support or not) then they're kidding themselves. Only someone who has never experienced Apple's App Store/iTunes or Google Market will think OVI has got it right. And when they find out the truth later they'll be kicking themselves silly for not doing the research before buying.

I suspect that OVI could, in one fell swoop, bring down Nokia's attempts at their next generation of smartphone.

They cannot rest on their 2007 N95/N95 8GB laurels, the whole world moved on when the original iPhone hit the street. Two years on and there is the whole Android community just about to release their product into the wild. And the best Nokia can do is an archaic OVI Store, the 5800 and a June/July release date for the N97 that looks like the G1 or an even older HTC TyTN (did I read somewhere that HTC had a hand in the design of the N97 (http://www.missphones.co.uk/nokia/nokia-n97-smartphone-htc-touch-pro2-smartphone/)??).