Three things Nokia's Ovi Store needs to fix

By Flora Graham on 27 May 2009, 1:26pm

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2. Get the Ovi Store's own app up and running

We had to put down our sleek little E51 and bust out our clapped-out N95 to get a look at the specific application that's supposed to make accessing the Ovi Store easier. To get the app, we went through the Download menu and refreshed the catalogue until we could see an Ovi icon -- a rigmarole that reminded us why we need the damn store so badly in the first place.

The Ovi Store app is a vast improvement over the Web-based version (accessible at store.ovi.com), however, both in terms of looks and usability. The option to filter and sort apps is just a click of a button, for example, rather than scrolling down to the bottom of a Web page and manipulating drop-down menus. So why isn't it available on all the Nokia smart phones, at a minimum?

Nokia should have chained its teams of developers to their elegant Finnish desks to make sure it would be ready for most smart phone handsets at launch. Otherwise, it just goes to show how tough it is to develop for Nokia's huge range of phones, when Nokia should be making it look easy -- and showing off a slick, user-friendly version of its store.