Nokia's Ovi Store debuts to rival App Store
20,000 apps ready for your downloading pleasure
Nokia lovers everywhere will be rejoicing at the news that they will finally have their own version of an App Store as the Ovi portal has finally gone live worldwide.
The new Ovi Store will initially be available for 50 Nokia handsets as a download, and will be pre-installed on the forthcoming flagship N97.
"Ovi Store is open for business and we've stocked the shelves with both local and global content for a broad range of Nokia devices.
"Ovi Store makes shopping for content and applications easy and fun for feature phone and smartphone owners alike," said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice president for Nokia Services.
Free for all
Nokia is estimating that around 50 million users will be able to download and use content from the store, which will include 20,000 items from launch.
This will be a mix of 'mobile content', meaning that not only will you be able to get applications to give you extra day to day functionality, but also games and mobile-friendly videos (we refuse to call them mobisodes), both free and paid for.
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When Nokia spoke about Ovi to the world in Barcelona earlier this year, it said that the Store would be unlike any other, giving not just the usual fare but also extras like location-specific applications being pushed onto users for when they're travelling the world.
The UK site is still showing a blank screen, but we're assured that this is due to a global server transition and will be up and running shortly.
Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grew with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.