Nokia Ovi Blog

Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Making of Ovi Suite 2.0

Published
by
Kalle
on June 25, 2009
in Ovi by Nokia
. 38 Comments

Hi- I’m Kalle Ojala. I head up Product Management for Ovi Desktop Products.
For the last few years we have worked on the development of Nokia Ovi Suite, which helps people update their Nokia phone firmware, use Ovi services, sync contacts, calendar and to-do lists with their PC applications, transfer photos and videos from their Nokia phones to and from their PCs for storage and organization, and backup their phone data to their PC. Today I’m thrilled to share with you the beta for Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0.

Unlike most software updates, which deliver loads of new features, the philosophy behind Ovi Suite is to pare down the features to the essentials that our consumers have told us they want. We gained lots of amazing insights from our consumer research and we’ll continue to incorporate your requests in our development efforts.

I also want to take you behind the scenes for a moment and share some insight into our development process:

Our development team is comprised of a mix of veteran desktop developers and newcomers from the Internet generation. The team debated the merits of the waterfall and agile application development methods – and I’m thrilled to announce that agile development emerged as the victor. It’s been really interesting to see how different “minds” work together: sometimes we’re in perfect harmony and other times it feels like we’re grappling with the basics to understand each others’ points of view. But hey, this has been an unforgettable journey that we all feel really passionate about. At the end of the day, the results speak for themselves and we hope you’ll find that Ovi Suite exceeds your expectations.

So, what’s next? Since Ovi Suite was developed with Nokia’s Qt software, it’s “potentially almost foreseeable” that other versions will be forthcoming, but don’t hold your breath quite yet. :-D

Nokia Ovi Suite supports over 100 different Nokia S60 and Series 40 devices, with more being added all the time. Ovi Suite will eventually replace Nokia PC Suite and will be the only PC application from Nokia.

So download it, try out and give us your feedback. Check it out at Nokia Beta Labs http://betalabs.nokia.com/ovisuite.

Cheers
Kalle

Ovi Store – week 2 update

Published
by
EricJohn
on June 17, 2009
in Ovi by Nokia
. 45 Comments

Now that Ovi Store has been up and running for a couple of weeks, I’d like to share some initial results from a content and usage perspective. We’ve been hard at work since we first opened our doors, adding more content every day and optimizing the experience with the release of a new Ovi Store client that has incorporated your feedback. We’ve also launched the Nokia N97 as the first device with Ovi Store inside. In the midst of all this, I wanted to take a moment to share some things that I am extremely proud of regarding the Ovi Store roll out as well as provide you with some updates on content in the store.

First off all, our “thanks!” to all the Ovi Store users who have visited and used the store over the last two weeks. We are working very diligently to make the store available to everyone. Thus far we have:

• users from 152 countries around the world

• support for more than 75 Nokia devices

• integrated mobile billing with 27 operators globally

• localized the store in 5 different languages

And….downloads have exceeded our expectations! Since launch, our users have made the Applications category the #1 spot for free items, while the Games category now holds the #1 spot for premium content.

You may wonder, what application has been downloaded the most times? Well… that would be “Digital Alarm Clock” of course! with its retro-green digital interface that lights up your nightstand.

What application is the current highest seller? That would be our beloved, full-featured Twitter client, Gravity.

In fact, we’re finding most of the top applications across all 152 countries are applications that offer messaging solutions like Twitter, Facebook & SMS apps.

Speaking of countries, the top countries in terms of download #’s are (in alphabetical order): Germany, Italy, Spain, UK & USA.

That’s all the updates we have for now, but we’d love to hear your comments and suggestions. Let us know what kind of information you’d like to see in future! (top 10 apps? staff picks? new hottness?)

Thanks! – Eric & Ovi Store Team http://store.ovi.com

Terve, Hola, Willkommen, Benvenuto and Welcome!

Published
by
mattmiz
on June 1, 2009
in Ovi by Nokia
. 13 Comments

So what’s up with all the languages you may be asking? Good question! While everyone was busy sleeping (and partying over the weekend), we were very busy rolling out some new stuff for you all on Ovi.com. In case you haven’t figured out by now, we’ve rolled out Ovi.com in three new languages for you: Spanish, German and Italian. Also, in response to lots and lots of feedback from you our users we’ve made a number of usability improvements. If we’ve got it right, you might not even notice them. And if you were really asleep, maybe you missed the launch of Ovi Store – but no fear – just click on the new navigation to go straight to the Store and find great content for your device, or Mail and enjoy your truly mobile you@ovi.com email address. Thanks for checking in, now get back out there and have fun! Look fwd to your thoughts in the comments.
Pidä hauskaa!
-Matt