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Tag: "Ovi"

By Yash Maheshwari on September 03rd, 2009

Ovi Opens up to the Developers with the launch of Ovi SDK beta & Ovi APIs

The second day of Nokia World, which was being pitted as the day for the developers, saw Nokia releasing a beta of the Ovi SDK for the Developers as well as Ovi APIs. As of now, only two APIs have been released, but more are slated to be released later.

According to the press release “Nokia makes it easier for web publishers and developers to create applications with integrated services with Ovi APIs and Ovi SDK Beta introducing a new breed of applications for the web and smartphone platforms”

Read on for more details about the SDK and how to apply for it.

News & Info • Press Release
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By Yash Maheshwari on September 02nd, 2009

Ovi Maps with New Content & Services Arrives at the Betalabs for Touch Phones

Another major services announcement at the Nokia World today was the launch of the Ovi Maps Beta for S60v5 (Touch Phones) at the Nokia Betalabs. This new beta brings with it a new starting screen giving you one touch access to a variety of new content and services from within Ovi Maps.

Basically, What all is new in this release is :

Weather – Get real-time weather information including a 5 day forecast for your current or any location found with the help of the Find places functionality.

Michelin and Lonely Planet – Get dynamic access to premium editorial travel content for over 1000 destinations. Find thousands of listings for sights, restaurants, hotels, shops, nightlife, and more. Look these places up on the map, and get there with pedestrian and car navigation.

Events – Check out the events on the map around your location or other places you have found with the help of the Find places functionality.

Read on for more details, the introduction video & screenshots along with the download link.

Travel • Utilities
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By Yash Maheshwari on September 02nd, 2009

Nokia Launches Ovi Lifecasting Beta to Help You Share Your Memories Instantly on Facebook

During the Nokia World keynote speech today, Nokia announced and immediately made available the first beta of their new Ovi Lifecasting widget for the Nokia N97. This is an exclusive preview of a new Ovi service for the first early birds. Download the Ovi lifecasting widget NOW to make sure you are one of the first exclusive beta users!

According to the Ovi Lifecasting page on Nokia Betalabs, here is an overview of what Ovi Lifecasting does.

With Ovi, you can now keep your Facebook friends up to date where you are and what you are doing in a new way.
Right from the home screen of your Nokia N97, you can lifecast the street address you are at, and your friends can see your location on a map. You can also share a meaningful location from the nearby places of interest or your favourite place that you have saved on Ovi MapsBeta. To show your friends what a great spot you are exploring, you can take a photo, and attach it to your Facebook post.

To watch the Introduction video, screenshots & details on how to get Ovi Lifecasting, Read on for the details.

Social Networking
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By Yash Maheshwari on August 17th, 2009

Shazam launches on Ovi Store with a free for use 100 days promo

Music buffs rejoice. ShazamiD, the popular music discovery & recognition app is now available on the Ovi Store as Shazam with a 100 days of free usage as a part of the introductory promo.

According to the description on the store,

“Get Shazam on a free* to use basis until Nov.30. 2009. This promo is on a limited, first come first served basis, so get Shazam now to discover music for free.. At the end of the promo, to continue using Shazam you can download a new app and use Shazam Lite** with limited features and tagging for free; or pay once for unlimited tagging and full features.”

For some reason, I have not been able to download Shazam from the store website nor from the mobile client. If you are able to download and use it, please drop in a comment whether it is the same as ShazamiD or this is a different version for the store.

Screenshots

App. Details

Name – Shazam

Developers - Shazam Ent’ Ltd. (Homepage)

Price – Free

Download

Entertainment
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By Yash Maheshwari on August 15th, 2009

Ovi Store down for the moment – “Men at Work”

As the Ovi Blog had mentioned yesterday, The Ovi Store is down for maintenance today. Both the website and the mobile client will remain inaccessible for most part of Saturday.
The website says that the store is down for maintenance at the moment and will be back up shortly.

Where as the mobile client says that the [...]

General • News & Info
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By Payam Dastmalchi on June 27th, 2009

Nokia to launch Chinese-version of Ovi store by the end of 2009

According to Nokia sources in China, the handset manufacture plans to launch a Chinese version of the Ovi store in the China market by the end of this year.

This is all part of Nokia’s efforts to grow its market share in China. Currently there over 180 million Nokia handset owners in China and Nokia foresees stronger demand for access to Internet services through mobile phones. Out of 700 million mobile subscribers in China, there are only 350 million mobile Internet users but many analysts believe that due to recent implementations of 3G and WLAN hotspot networks, this number is expected to increase by additional 150 million over the next two years and Nokia sees Ovi store as the marketing force to grab a greater share of the mobile Internet subscribers in China.

General
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By Payam Dastmalchi on June 17th, 2009

Nokia calling all developers to innovate!

calling_all_innovators_logo1

WOW! If you are a mobile developer and looking to get your hands dirty and try new platforms, then this might be it. Nokia is giving away a total of $250k in cash and prizes and inviting developers to submit applications for the 2009 Calling All Innovators contest.

There are total of three categories :

  • Internet innovation – Calling on web developers to transform consumer-focused ideas into real applications on Nokia devices using technologies that include Nokia Web Runtime, XHTML, CSS, Java Script, AJAX, widgets and other standards-based web technologies.
  • Flash – Challenging creative developers and designers to build compelling applications that expand the capabilities and user benefits of Flash Lite on Nokia devices.
  • Emerging Markets and Mobile Necessities – Urging developers to create innovative applications across mobile technology platforms – ranging from SMS through Series 40 and S60 device platforms. All applications will be considered, including those developed using Java, Python, or open source.

and what are the qualifications to get some of that $250k?

The top three submissions in each category will receive cash and prizes that include:

  • Grand Prize winner: $30,000 USD in cash; “Spotlight” placement featuring the winning application for 4 weeks on the top page of Nokia’s newly announced Ovi Store, where consumers will find the best mobile applications and content for their Nokia devices; and paid travel to demo the winning application at a Nokia-specified event in the Fall 2009.
  • 2nd Place: $15,000 USD in cash; “Spotlight” placement featuring the winning application for 3 weeks on a relevant category page in Nokia’s newly announced Ovi Store, where consumers will find the best mobile applications and content for their Nokia devices.
  • 3rd Place: $10,000 USD in cash; “Spotlight” placement featuring the winning application for 2 weeks on a relevant category page in Nokia’s newly announced Ovi Store, where consumers will find the best mobile applications and content for their Nokia devices.

In addition, the winning applications in all three categories will be reviewed by Nokia for possible preload on future Nokia devices.

Head on to Calling All Innovators to learn more about the contest and get your apps ready. I’ve spoken to many developers over the past few weeks and the number one complaint that I hear, is the lack of resources and support. I specifically think this is a great opportunity for iphone developers who’ve built great revenue producing apps and are now ready to expand and move on to other platforms.

General
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By Payam Dastmalchi on June 08th, 2009

4 Apps that I want from Ovi

As Ovi enters its third week of existence and many users still complaining from the lack of content, quality and overall functionalities of the store, I thought I would list 4 apps that I would personally love to see appear on the store.

1- Wordpress

Although there is a way to update Wordpress using email, I would love to see a native S60 app that will allow me to update posts, upload photos, manage comments, edits pages on my blog using a Nokia phone.

General
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By Payam Dastmalchi on June 05th, 2009

NYTimes take on Nokia and Ovi Store

Bob Tedeschi of NYTimes has an interesting take on Nokia phone sales in North America and the overall quality of the newly launched Ovi store. I will let you guys read through his piece but I agree with most of the article. He makes few strong points:

  • In order for Nokia to dominate the smartphone market in NAM, they need more and better quality apps in OVI. They also need to re-work the distribution channell and make it easy for consumers to purchase apps on the fly.
  • Ovi apps are far more expensive than similar Iphone or Blackberry apps. Nokia has to start working with app developers to figure out how they can publish quality apps with the average consumer in mind.
  • Search functionality on the Ovi store is quit possibly the worst part of it. It demands some major attention.
  • We all are optimistic about Nokia coming through and improving the store. The global market share, loyal app developers and the fact that US carrier AT&T will intergrate its services with the Ovi store later this year are all good reasons for us to look forward to better days.
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By Payam Dastmalchi on May 27th, 2009

Let’s give OVI some time!

ovistore

A lot has been said about the launch of the OVI store today. With sites like TechCrunch , WashingtonPost , Venturebeat and others all weighing in on the store’s rather disappointment first day launch and the fact that Nokia didn’t take necessary measurements prior to the launch to ensure they can handle the server load and don’t pull a Twitter on 50 million Nokia phone owners :) .

As a long time Nokia phone owner, I am rather optimistic and I am actually looking forward to Nokia to continue to innovate the store and introduce new apps and process. Let’s give them few weeks to get a hang of things- Remember iphone also experienced several glitches when they first introduced their app store so let’s be fair.

General
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