Nokia has announced its new application store, 'the Ovi store' at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world's first location-aware app store for mobile phones.
Nokia's 'smart' Ovi Store "will offer consumers relevant, targeted media through their social connections and their physical location information," claims Nokia.
"Beginning in March, content providers, developers and the existing Forum Nokia developer ecosystem can begin uploading their content at publish.ovi.com," the release adds.
Loads of relevant apps
Nokia wants to offer its customers "personally relevant, up-to-the- minute media for their devices…" including games, videos, widgets, podcasts, location-based applications and personalisation content for Nokia Series 40 and S60 devices.
The Nokia N97, releasing in June, will be the first device to include the simple and easy-to-use Ovi app store storefront.
Existing Nokia Series 40 and S60 users will also get access to Nokia's new service from early May.
Developers will get a 70 per cent cut of revenues, with major developers such as EA, Shazam, MySpace and Fox already signed up to create content for Nokia.
Major devs on board
"Ovi Store will empower consumers around the world to take better advantage of the power of mobile through a new content discovery experience," said Mauro Montanaro, CEO of Fox Mobile Group.
"We are excited to broaden our relationship with Nokia and believe Ovi will enhance our ability to take uniquely innovative content, such as from the upcoming 20th Century Fox release, Ice Age 3, and create unparalleled mobile entertainment experiences across millions of devices."
"EA Mobile has been successfully pre-loading and offering our broad range of games to Nokia consumers around the world for many years" adds Javier Ferreira, VP Publishing Europe, EA Mobile.
"We are very enthusiastic about the new Ovi Store as it combines ease of discovery, relevancy and recommendation which are essential in any quality content offering."
Now check out 'Is there a point to Nokia Ovi?'
