Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

One has to be very determined to publish to Ovi Store...

First time I tried uploading content, the site hinted me that I need to upload .install file. Cool - I uploaded one.
One week later I got feedback from QA, that I need to upload .deb file. Great - one week of waiting for nothing.

Yesterday I wanted to upload something new. Ok - this time hint says that I need to upload .deb.
Off we go, here's your .deb file. And I got a very surprising error, saying that I uploaded .deb and I should be uploading... .deb.

That's just craptastic.
Who wants to bet how much time will it take them to fix it?

Is the whole Ovi Store broken that badly, or is it just the Maemo part?

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Doesn't look too good:
http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/fo...-not-supported

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Maybe you should ask for help from someone who has successfully uploaded something to ovi-store.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

I reported a bug to Ovi.
Last time it took them 2 weeks to fix it.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

My guess, the whole point of Ovi Store existence is:
- What should I choose? Android, iPhone or Nokia? Well... Android and iPhone have application Market/Store...
- Wait! We have that too! Look! there it is - Ovi Store...

And there you go - the checkmark/yes on the comparison list.
It does not really matter, that it does not work. You will get to know that AFTER you buy the device...

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

The OVI store is a classic example of a product designed "by commitee" or "looks good on paper".

I can imagine Nokia thinking "Hey our competitors have their own app store and we don't".

Nokia "brainstorm" the idea. Managaement say "this is cool our own app store". It gets implemented without much thought - a reactive decision is made rather than a strategic decision.

OVI Store is launched - it looks the part, on the surface is works fine (from customer point-of-view) but back-end stuff and the "boring" logistics of actually providing new stuff is ignored.

Nobody took the time and effort to analyse how the back-end process will operate. For example, initially requiring a VAT number - if Nokia actually knew anything about the current market of selling software they would realise many software "companies" are very small developer teams or individuals.

If you are going to charge people to upload apps you had better offer some value (e.g. do a better job of talking to developers in the app store - Nokia's track record of communicating to anyone outside Nokia is not a good one).

Just goes to show how out of touch Nokia are with the growing smartphone and app market.

Nokia are quite happy sitting on their backsides riding the momentum of providing "budget" symbian-based mobile phones.

People are demanding more from their mobile phones and at some point it won't be good enough - all phones will have to be smartphone in the future.

MeeGo is Nokia's last chance but I think they are too late.

(Hopefully I will be proved wrong)

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Ovi Store is what came out of the ashes of Nokia MOSH.

MOSH had literally thousands of apps, or for want of a better word "items". Sadly though around 70% of it was illegal, and Nokia were told to clean things up. Once they removed all the hacks, copyrighted videos, illegal mp3 albums & tracks, porn, Bluetooth hacking utils and stuff that just didn't work on any model of Nokia handset, there was next to nothing left. Get-Jar seems to be going in a similar direction. I lost track of how much time and bandwidth I spent downloading stuff to my N95 only for it to either fail to install or fail to work.

The same thing happened to the iPhone Appstore, and just for the record, MOSH was up and running before the original iPhone hit the shelves ;)

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

So the question becomes "What's the difference between Apple's store and Nokia's?"

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

What about the app store for Palm PDAs?

PalmGear

I bought stuff from there before and proved really useful.

Nokia have a huge mobile phone marketshare and should be encouraging people to write software for it.

The QT SDK is a great development environment from a technical perspective everything is pretty much there.

Nokia have no excuse for the current state of the OVI Store - the concept has proved itself on more than one occasion.

The OVI Store is like walking down the street, walking behind a "fine looking lady with a great figure and long golden blonde hair almost silhouetted against the sunlight", you then think "wow! she must be lovely - I wonder what she looks like?"

Then she turns round and she has the face of a 102 year-old with sun-damaged skin that would put a wrinkled prune to shame and you feel overwhelming disappointment.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

One works, the other doesn't?

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Ovi store work great for others nokia phone models, we dont need to generalise the whole ovi store thing

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

I wish there was a way of getting my €50 back...

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

If memory serves me correct, Risku said in one of his articles that the whole Ovi shindig is being developed by a Londonese firm that has very little else to do with Nokia.

Maybe its time to give these fellows a boot or integrate them with some people who have actually seen code before in their lives.

Another explanation might be that there aren't enough people working on the store, as its not as of yet "off its feet" by any measure. Kind of a catch 22 though if they won't hire more folks before its more succesful.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

This was exactly my question.

Thanks for shedding some light on this.

This is just another point showing how completely dead N900 is.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Smoku, what do you want to upload, and why?
I'm just curious.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

(conspiracy theory time!) i think nokia are actually using n900 as a kind of social experiment. provide some fantastic hardware and aim it at developers, give them tools to make their own stuff but choke the opportunity for big companies to provide any functional apps on the side. i mean surely a company as big and as experienced as nokia couldn't f*ck things up this badly by accident?

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

I think Nokia N900 rushed out when equipped with Maemo 5.
However it is difficult to have an online market for more diverse models as specifications.
Nokia N900 was something like ... we've produced, u will do the rest.
And in the end is nothing to have a well Ovi Store but no applications and games to fill it.

Give me bad experience ovi store but 100 games and 200 apps and i will never ever eveeeeeeer complain about the bad ovi store construction :D

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

How would you expect apps in store, when publishers are unable to upload them?

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

fairy tale delivery ?:D

I think bigger software producer like ubi dont have problems to publish apps to ovi

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Smoku,

I agree that Ovi on N900 is crap, But, I think that even if it was perfect on the uploading part, and support from Nokia Ovi QA part, it would have still been crap.

Reason :
- The exposure the Maemo 5 OS gets is limited to 1 device. N900.
- N900 was not soled in large quantities compared to other models of nokia or any other brand.
- Therefore, not many developers even care about maemo 5.
- So not many apps are ported/developed for the N900

On the other hand we have the competitors :
- Android, all apps run on multiple Hardware phones, because they share the same platform - So it doesn't matter how much exposure a specific phone model gets, what matters is the overall platform.
- Iphone, even though limited to a small number of hardware models, these models are so popular, that the number of developers is huge.
even all the protection methods Apple put didn't stop developers from doing everything.
Bluetooth, Wifi sharing, RDP, SSH, FTP, SCP, Flac, Video
Everything works on the iphone if you put some effort to it. (Excluding flash yeye).

After saying all the above, Nokia came forth and burried maemo 5 only to create Meego, ruining any chance of maemo 5 application market / future to ever evolve to a level even remotely close to the competitors.

The only question I have at the moment, is one for the future.
Will Meego suffer in the same manner? or will we really see lots of hardware companies distributing their phones with meego, resulting in large developer pool.
Also, will they support Meego in the long term? like android 1.6 is supported, and all apple phone have received multiple updates, allowing developers to keep developing for all of them at once?
Will Qt API ever be as powerful as the IPhone API? allowing developers to easily create Responsive, Good Looking, aesthetic games and apps?

Honestly, It's too early to know about Meego.
Even though I love My N900, i'm already looking at purchasing a new phone, (had n900 for 6 months now, wrote 1 app for it that I uploaded, and some other stuff I wrote for myself, the process was not pleasent.)
Probably i'll go for android 2.2 on some 1GHz device.

Edit :
1 Year ago I was laughing at all Iphone owners with my N95.
I really do think it is better then all of them iphones.
But with the N900 my opinion changed a bit.
But this could most definetly happen again in 2 years, where i'll be the owner of some HTC or Even Iphone 4, and Meego will be so attractive, i'll be posting the very same message on android/apple forums, and buy a meego device :)

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

You seriously think so?

I think we would see more stuff in Store even from big companies, if they wouldn't have to resort to "my CEO will call your CEO and try to push things going".

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

It is clear that nokia left n900/maemo5 half baked, including ovi store.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

:(

so ..., how long Ovi support MeeGo and Other Device?
Sound Look Like ...Nokia and Ovi become fail in Smartphone Maket and Application Store.

Why Nokia do not Accept Android to be Nokia OS?

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Well... I spent a lot of effort to prepare application for the Store + €50 entry fee.
And hit such a basic bug...

I'm not willing to try it again with MeeGo...

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

50 Euro to me sounds a lot for an OS with such small exposure.
I feel your frustration, and even though Meego is step 5 of the 5 step plan, it's quite scary as a developer to make all this poring + preparation + payment to publish in ovi, even for Meego / Symbian (Qt) when who knows if nokia decides to ditch Qt altogether next year.

It seems to me that Nokia is not really thinking ahead enough, and when they are confronted for answers, they only reveal so much, because the practically don't know themselves.

I consider this very post (my own) a bit as trolling, cause I am displayed the negative side of things, but I do want to state that when I consider the alternative, Buying IPhone or Android, I get a little depressed and start imagining how wonderful it would be if I could get meego, for atleast 5 years of "Attention" from nokia, with proper hardware, and still have the linux infrastructure allowing amazing people like rambo to write amazing apps like mobile hotspot.

In the meantime, it's a day by day struggle, to keep using the N900, and wait for meego. If I survive the game 6 months, maybe i'll be a meego owner :)

Cheers.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Ovi is not designed to support N900 well.

#1 : If you are a publisher, neither Ovi nor N900 can offer to you a DRM mechanism to protect your application from cloning and re-distributing freely. So, you need to build in some kind of DRM mechanism yourself and operate a web service in addition to Ovi to register and grand the keys to legit users.

#2 : If, by any chance, your app depends on libraries from fremantle-extras, there is no easy way for your app to trigger dependencies installation. There is a firewall between Ovi repository and frematle-extras. Some people provide a meta-package in extras and ask users to install it as a part of post-install process from Ovi -- but that is by no mean a reasonable solution.

#3 : Profit sharing with Ovi is to say the least *misleading*. Counting in (or out) operator transaction fees, you might expect only about 25 cents on a dollar charged to the end user *before* currency conversion and wire fees charged by your local bank. So, if you are in US selling your app in EU, you would have hard time actually making any money. Don't forget that you would also need to pay your Fed/State taxes to IRS as paying taxes from revenue is publisher's responsibility.

#4 : Revenue distribution -- is done by Nokia every 90 days if it reaches $500.0. If not, end of business year.

#5 : To publish your app with Ovi, you would need:

1. TaxID
2. Website for your product
3. e-mail address for product support
4. Company logo
5. $1M insurance to cover your content.
6. Pay $50 to register as publisher

#6 : Pass Ovi's Q/A -- Ovi staff in no rush to help you get your app to the market. From what I gather, it might take 2 month for it to appear in the store.

So, the bottom line, Ovi for Maemo5 is a joke not worth of even considering, IMHO.

Before you dive in, carefully read Ovi's Publisher Terms & Conditions and consider your options.

Realistically, your options are either

1. Publish via Fremantle Extras nonfree.
2. Publish from your own .deb repository.

Both options would require from you to run a web-based business shop and implement your own DRM.

I believe, both options have been used by people here.

Clearly, N900 Maemo5 still remains a hack cultural device not meant by its creators to seriously grow a commercial following of any kind.

The MeeGo, on the other hand, would offer DRM lock-down from bottom up and I am sure Nokia would improve Ovi store experience for MeeGo device.

If people familiar with this issue have first-hand experience to sell and deliver paid contents to N900, I would be more than grateful for them to correct me in any way and to share their thoughts and experiences.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

please Smoku
we want your enhanced amiga port!

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

I wonder why someone hasn't filed a legal case against Nokia : with all the false advertising (in the UK at least with the N900), lack of customer service/device support and a useless Ovi store.

Just yesterday I saw Nokia's new advert on TV about how fantastic the Ovi store is; my friends where oblivious as to why I was laughing so much.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Can't sue people for stuff that barely works despite claims otherwise people would sue Microsoft every damn day.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Oh.
I've heard in America you can sue someone for almost anything, think I'd have any luck over there? :rolleyes:

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

They are covered by their EULAs which says that MS would not be responsible for anything that happens to you or your computer or anything else as a result of using their malware.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Lately, we've been leaving the flippant lawsuits to the EU/EC. Keep up the good work! :)

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

I just had an idea maybe why the Ovi store for N900 sucks so badly (it isn't that bad for other Nokia devices, right?).

It could be so that Nokia never intended to make a big effort for the Ovi store on N900. Maybe they regarded the N900 as the Maemo Linux experiment it's proven to be, and that they considered the 'extras' (community development) repositories as the kind of place the N900 users would primarily go to for applications and games, instead of the Ovi store.
It's just a theory, but I do agree it sucks bigtime, especially since the N900 both as a concept and from a hardware point of view had such a big potential. I still love the device, but I'm angry at Nokia for their short lived sorry *** strategy decisions and lack of care for their customers. It's kind of arrogant in a way.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

There really isn't any "EC" any more as both EC (and old EEC) is simply "EU" now after the Treaty of Lisbon. :)

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Out of academic curiosity, what exactly have you uploaded the first time? =)

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Very nice explanation, thanks!

It also shows the great big typical issue this "community" has: the complete, utter, total absence of Nokia in these discussions.

Where are Quim and Jussi in all this? Why do they only show up if they have a bone to throw at us? (read: a device to sell)
When does Nokia learn that they themselves must play an active part in the community if they really want this ecosystem to succeed? (and not just in the hardcore OS-development communtiy!)

Or are we just in the wrong place and all devs should move to Forum Nokia?

Working hard on apps for this platform is only fun because of the tinkering possible - but it just isn't encouraging from a standpoint of support, communication, sustainability and encouragement.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

Really? This article and this article among many others still use it after 2007, which according to the Treaty of Lisbon should have stopped.

Cool to know though. I learned something.

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

its a shame that developers have so many problems at uploading apps to ovi store.
its ike ovi WOULD HAVE TO BE CRAP
and nobody could make it better....

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

I know it's off topic but I really can't stand the trendy microsoft bashing.

[rant]
If people sued microsoft, they would get laughed out of court and pointed to the manufacturer of their hardware and or their own negligence. Microsoft products, folks, work on millions of hardware configuration. What are we comparing this too? Apple? They make a grand total of 6-7 pieces of hardware that run their desktop OS, and it's STILL not bug free either. And they build their own hardware. They have no excuse.
[/rant]

Back on topic. The Ovi store sucks. It was never meant in ernest to be a real market for developers it seems. We can only hope Meego will fare better in this regard.

2d

Re: Ovi Store? Seriously...
 

You think putting the new name sticker on top will fix things?