Nokia’s developer relations team would like you to remind you that Symbian has an App Store, called Ovi, and they’ve just surpassed 7.62 million downloads per day, thank you very much.
Their short announcement states that thanks to a recent change in the registration process – namely the removal of account requirements for the downloading of free apps – has sparked interest in the Ovi store. Most downloads are coming from India, making that country “the top country by downloads from the mobile web channel.” → Read More
Users of Google Maps and Bing Maps have enjoyed 3D imagery for a while now, and Nokia is now catching up with the launch of (admittedly very nice-looking) photorealistic 3D models of 20 metropolitan areas from across the globe.
On Maps.ovi.com/3d, you can now explore places in 3D in major cities like London, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Milan, New York, San Francisco and, of course, Helsinki.
The feature is free on Ovi Maps and will be formally introduced later today at the Where 2.0 conference in California. → Read More
PayPal has quietly released a mobile application for Nokia devices on the Finnish mobile phone maker’s Ovi Store marketplace, a tipster points out.
Indeed, while I can’t find the app from where I’m searching (Belgium), other TechCrunchers in the United States can find the app just fine (see screenshots after the jump). → Read More
Last year, the world went app crazy. If anything, 2010 was the year of the mobile App Store—not only for Apple, but also for Android, Blackberry, and even Nokia. App store analytics firm Distimo has a new report looking at Great Mobile App Store Boom of 2010. While Apple ended the year with roughly 300,000 apps in iTunes, the Android Market grew to about 130,000, while Nokia’s Ovi Store got to 25,000 apps and BlackBerry App World reached 18,000. The number of apps in iTunes doubled, but the smaller app stores grew even faster, with the number of Android apps up 544 percent, Blackberry apps up 268 percent, and Nokia apps up 258 percent.
Angry Birds is the most popular app across all mobile platforms, while Facebook is the most popular non-game app. Distimo also found that the categories with the strongest growth on the iPhone were serious business apps (up 186 percent) and medical apps (up 156 percent), whereas the fastest-growing categories on Android were more frivolous: comics (up 802 percent), card and casino games (up 644 percent), and entertainment (up 589 percent). Go figure. → Read More
Big numbers coming out of Nokia land this morning. The company says its application store Ovi Store continues to gain traction, this week reaching the 3 million downloads per day milestone, up from 1 million downloads per day in the beginning of this year and 2.3 million downloads per day last month.
In addition, Nokia revealed that the total number of users of Ovi now exceeds 165 million people across more than 190 countries. Furthermore, Nokia says it is adding some 250,000 new Ovi users on a daily basis, which means roughly 7.5 million new users per month. → Read More
Nokia has declared its Ovi suite of service and the Ovi Store a roaring success.
The Finnish mobile giant says 200,000 people are now signing up to its services per day, and that the total number of active Nokia service users across the globe has reached 140 million (Ovi is available in more than 190 countries).
Nokia further claims its application store (Ovi Store) is a hit on its own, with 2.3 million apps now being downloaded to phones worldwide on a daily basis. → Read More
In the US we have a somewhat myopic view of cell phones. We have iPhones and Blackberrys and now Androids and Nexuses for smartphones, and a whole bunch of feature phones from manufacturers like LG and Motorola and Samsung. Notably absent from most wireless stores in the U.S. are Nokia, which is odd since Nokia owns more of the global cell phone market than its next three competitors combined. Part of this discrepancy is no doubt due to the market differences between U.S. carriers and wireless carriers in the rest of the world. But a large part of this can be explained by Nokia’s sheer arrogance. → Read More
At the Nokia World 2009 event in Stuttgart, Nokia Beta Labs has announced a number of new services ready for testing right now. The most interesting one is Ovi Lifecasting, an application we caught wind of yesterday but is now ready for limited early bird beta-testing.
Also new is an extension of Nokia Messaging called Social Messaging, which interestingly Nokia calls the groundwork for an impending proprietary multi-community social networking client. → Read More
At the Nokia World 2009 event in Stuttgart, Nokia Beta Labs has announced a number of new services ready for testing right now. The most interesting one is Ovi Lifecasting, an application we caught wind of yesterday but is now ready for limited early bird beta-testing.
Also new is an extension of Nokia Messaging called Social Messaging, which interestingly Nokia calls the groundwork for an impending proprietary multi-community social networking client. → Read More
There are no shortage of whispers out there right now as to what Facebook’s plans for location are. With rival Twitter having recently announced its geolocation API, the pressure is on the larger network to deliver something. Tomorrow will bring a step in that direction, as Nokia will announce a new service at its Nokia World event that will utilize location within Facebook, we’ve learned.
Now, to be clear, this is not Facebook officially getting into the game itself yet, but it’s big enough that Henri Moissinac, Facebook’s director of mobile, will apparently be using his keynote address at Nokia World to unveil this, we’ve heard.
The app looks to be a direct result of the Nokia purchase of the location-based social network Plazes, in the summer of 2008. As you can see in the screenshot below, an Ovi Map (Nokia’s map property) will reside inside of Facebook and show where you are. It can also update your Facebook status with your location, and a link to it on one of these maps. → Read More
When Nokia launched its Ovi Store for mobile applications a month ago, it was clear that – despite its less than stellar launch – it would be a mistake to simply dismiss the Finnish mobile juggernaut’s efforts as meaningless. The company may be struggling to stay relevant on the software and services side, but with a reach like Nokia’s on the handset distribution level I think it goes without saying that a lot of eyes are firmly fixed on Nokia’s initiatives in the field. → Read More
Yesterday developer Rick Strom wrote a blog posted titled “The Incredible App Store Hype“, in which he detailed some of the revenue stats he was seeing from the iPhone applications that he had released (some of which rank on the App Store’s top apps lists), and what other developers could expect to make accordingly. His conclusion? That most of the 36,000 applications on the App Store aren’t selling at all – for many apps, most days go by without a single sale.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be.
As marketplaces go, the App Store has a very low barrier to entry that makes it easy for anyone to sell their wares, which means that it’s flooded with apps. There’s no way Apple could prominently present these 36,000 applications to users without overwhelming them, which means most apps fall into obscurity as soon as they’re submitted. If you can’t find a way to get the word out, nobody is going to find your app on their own. → Read More
Nokia’s very own central application marketplace, dubbed Ovi Store, today officially made its way to the public arena as we expected.
We’ve browsed the online store extensively and hand-picked 10 applications we think you should download and install first. Note that the available content you can download depends on which device you’re using, we’ve selected the option ‘any phone’ to increase the chances of these being available for you as well:
(after the jump) → Read More
Vice president for Nokia media Marco Argenti outlined the plans for the Ovi Store they are preparing to launch next month. According to him the store will be an entertainment channel with applications and other content such as video, audio and games. → Read More
After Nokia announced their Ovi Suite for the PC, most Mac users felt left out in the cold. Sure, third-party solutions were available as alternatives on a function-by-function basis, but none challenged the simple one-stop, one-click syncing/media handling of Ovi. Looks like the Apple crowd might be getting the attention they’ve clamored for. On Monday, a “Macintosh Software Developer” job post went up in Nokia’s career section. From the post: Join the Nokia development team to help us take our Mac user experience to the next level. This new and exciting initiative will give you a chance to become part of the Ovi development team. We work in a challenging and inspiring environment using the latest technologies to combine mobile, Mac/PC and internet user experiences together. This team will help bring enabling solutions for Nokia device owners on the Apple Mac platform, and we are now looking for highly skilled professionals with proven track record of delivering products on time to join us. Seeing as Nokia has been claiming a Mac Ovi suite was “coming soon” for some time now, we’re hoping this job post is for the expansion of an already existing team, rather than the first steps of creating a new one. Furthermore, we hope “soon” actually means “soon” – if you’re not willing to drop $40 bucks for something like The Missing Sync, booting up Windows every time you want to sync gets old fast. [Symbian Guru] → Read More
http://www.twango.com/tools/twidgets/ticker.swf?feed=CrunchNetwork.NYCMeetupMay1 http://www.twango.com/tools/twidgets/slideshow.swf?feed=CrunchNetwork.NYCMeetupMay1 Thanks to Nokia for hooking us up with this cool Ovi channel for the event displayPres(470,346,”http://www.empressr.com/”,”O8gzGP0mKIU%3d”); → Read More
I periodically check a Blaine fan blog to see if he’s performed any magical madness lately. He hasn’t, but the blogger writes that Blaine is supporting Pangea Day. My first question is what the heck is Pangea Day? Second, how’s he gonna make the 300 million year old puzzle of a landmass fit together? I’ve seen the guy. He’s wiry. For the magically uninclined, Pangea Day is a global day of films, music and speakers that will be held simultaneously in cities around the world on May 10, 2008. It’s award-winning documentary filmmaker, Jehane Noujaim of Control Room and Startup.com fame’s brainchild after winning the 2006 TED prize. The list of supporters reads like a who’s who of social, political, technical and entertainment types, but what I thought was interesting is Nokia. Remember, this is CrunchGear. Nokia is inviting the globe to enter the 2008 Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards competition. You can shoot and upload your short videos to Share on Ovi to be considered for inclusion in the broadcast. Pretty cool. The winner receives a trip to LA for the event and “a mobile film making trip of a lifetime and a production budget to record the trip.” Isn’t that slightly subjective? I mean, what if my mobile film making trip of a lifetime involved midgets, goats and ninjas? Can David Blaine make that magic happen? → Read More
