Along with the cost of entry, to get themes published to the store, one has to be a “Premium Publisher”. I do not know what the criteria or requirements to become a “Premium Publisher” are, but I will certainly look into it.

Due to these shortcomings, there are very few themes available on the Ovi Store currently, with only 3 out of those being free themes.

But that does not mean S60 users do not have good themes available. There are a lot of really talented artists out there creating stunning themes. Most of these themes are free for use, but a few of them are premium themes, costing a few dollars. Starting today, we shall highlight a theme every week at our site. The theme could be a premium theme or even a free theme, but all the themes will be worth having on your phone.

The first theme to get highlighted is a premium theme by tehkSeven Studios called Fissure.

Fissure by tehkSeven Studios

Fissure is a dark theme with various shades of angled rectangular shapes that play with the concept of depth of dimension of the background wallpaper.

This theme comes in various editions – There are different editions for S60v3 N series & E series phones as well as a separate edition for S60v5 phones. Each edition is available with either the default icon pack of the phone or tehkSeven Studios’ custom Seven icon pack.

You can buy the default icon pack edition for €1.00 or the seven icon pack editions for €2.00. Or if you would like to buy the complete theme pack, it could be yours for €5.00.

S60v5 users would definitely want to try this theme out as I have used it on the Nokia N97, and can say that it looked absolutely stunning on the large screen.

Here are the screenshots of this masterpiece from tehkSeven Studios, which if you wish to purchase, you can do so from this page – Fissure.

Screenshots

Nokia E71

Nokia N85

Nokia 5800

1. Nokia Photo Browser

An experimental photo browser from the Nokia Beta Labs, Nokia Photo Browser makes your viewing experience quick and fun with :

This is still a beta application, but nevertheless, a fun app to browse photo on.

Download – Nokia Photo Browser

2. Nokia Handwriting Calculator

Another release of the Nokia Beta Labs, Handwriting Calculator is a showcase of Nokia’s new handwriting recognition technology. It allows you to calculate handwritten math expressions using the stylus as the writing instrument.

As with the Photo Browser, this an experimental beta too. There might be hiccups, but its simply too cool to not have on your phone.

Download – Nokia Handwriting Calculator

3. Easy Wi-Fi

“Easy Wi-Fi automates connection to the Wi-Fi hotspots you use. No need to use a browser and remember usernames and passwords. Easy Wi-Fi makes it simple and fast to get connected”

Download – Easy Wi-Fi

4. AccuWeather.com WRT Widget

The N97 ships with the AccuWeather.com WRT Widget, but for some reason, instead of the widget being installed on the 32GB mass storage, it is installed on the meager phone memory of the N97. Now you can uninstall the widget from phone memory and install it onto the mass storage, thereby recovering the crucial phone memory.

The best part of the AccuWeather.com widget is that it supports the widget based N97 homescreen, which means that you can set the widget to show the current weather on the homescreen all the time!

Download – AccuWeather.com WRT Widget

5. PixelPipe for Share Online

Liberate your media with Pixelpipe. Upload photos, video, and audio files once through the Pixelpipe Media Gateway and distribute your content across over 100+ social networks, photo/video sites, blogs, and other online services.

Snapped a photo and want to share it with your friends on Facebook as well as your followers on Twitter? How about a 100 other services in one go? Simply send it to PixelPipe which pushes your uploads to the configured services. Download this widget to configure PixelPipe in your N97’s Share Online app to enable one touch uploads to PixelPipe!

Download – PixelPipe for Share Online

6. Nimbuzz

We have already reviewed Nimbuzz here on OviApplications. It is the “One app to IM them all!”

Off all the messenger apps available on the Ovi Store like Palringo, Fring, Eqo, we found Nimbuzz to be the best of the lot.

Chat with your friends on Yahoo!, Windows Live, Facebook, MySpace, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk or talk to them using Skype, Gizmo5 or any other VoIP service.

Download – Nimbuzz

7. Compass Touch

The N97 includes a Compass. But the only place it is used is in the Ovi Maps applications.

Download this app to access the magnetometer and use your N97 as a compass.

Download – Compass Touch

8. Shazam

“Lovin ’ that tune? Create music moments: discover and buy music.”

Loving that tune being played in the bar but can’t remember which song it is? Fire up Shazam and let it recognize that song for you. With a free for use trial till November 30th, This one deserves to be present on your N97 as well.

Download – Shazam

9. Dabr

Love to tweet? But not willing to pay for Gravity, the popular S60 twitter app? Dabr is just the right kind of service for you. It is a mobile optimized website for twitter. Dabr supports replies, retweets, sending DMs, image previews.

Download – Dabr

10. MeCanto

Do you feel 32 GB is still not enough to store your entire music library? Need more space?

Listen to your ENTIRE music collection on your phone and on the web. MeCanto lets you take your music collection with you, wherever you go, with virtually no storage limit.

Register for an account on www.mecanto.com & install the client on your computer where the entire music library is stored. You can then access your library from anywhere via the MeCanto website or your phone.

Download – MeCanto

The folks over at Qik HQ have put together a video demoing the app on N97 and also have this to say:

“To get started with Qik on the N97, go to the Application folder and press the Qik icon. Once the application starts, you will be prompted to upgrade. This is a mandatory upgrade so go ahead and select “Yes” when prompted and within seconds, you will be ready to share what you are doing live with your friends and family on any website, blog, or social network”

Nokia is inviting all Arabic developers in the region to take part in their Bil3arabi ‘Calling All Innovators’ contest to create Arabic local content for the newly launched Ovi Store.

The contest was announced at the official launch event of the flagship Nokia N97 which should be out in UAE sometime next week for AED 3,050.

The contest is open to all developers in the region who can submit local content to any category within the Ovi Store – applications and widgets, video, personalization, games, audio, flash & active idle widgets – with a focus on internet innovation, flash, and mobile games.

The contest starts today and will run until 30th October, with winners being announced on 7th December. Application submissions will be judged based on the feedback by customers as well as experts from Forum Nokia, with the grand prize winner taking home $100,000 for their efforts.

According to several unverified sources, Nokia’s North American distributors are getting ready to ship out N97 on June 2. As many of you probably know, the phone has been available for pre-order since the first week of May but nobody expected it to have it shipped out this soon. This all makes sense since Nokia officials have strongly suggested that with the OVI store launch, there will be changes made to the distribution system to make it easy for consumers to purchase the latest handsets as soon as they become available.

Lets all just hope it is true ‘cuz we all could use some N97 love, no?

UPDATED: well, everything is shapping out as expected…Nokia has confirmed the June availability (no actual date) and has priced the phone at £499 SIM-free (or $699 USD). The N97 will be available in both black and white.