Is it just me? I find all the ovi services cluttered and hard to navigate. It just does not attract me as a user to spend time there learning their services or shop for apps. It looks and feels like any other corporate website. As much as nokia wants to concentrate on internet services, i just don't see it happening from the user's perspective.
After looking at that, I can't think anything but "wow, what ugly fonts".. I know that phone isn't an iPhone, but you can still try to do some antialiasing, or something, right? Also, the information density seems pretty low (compared to the App Store).
I'm a little disappointed by the reception this news item is getting here on HN, isn't this a great opportunity for developers? I know HN is heavily Apple orientated site and filled with Flash haters - but Nokia has millions of phones out there and by supporting Flash - gives the Ovi app store a good chance of success.
Given who developed it (some Finnish company that diversified out of rubber boot manufacturing), presumably it will ship on devices or otherwise be widely available, so I don't think it's "irrelevant".
It seems quite good brand name for a service that is targeted for a global audience. Super-short and quite easy to pronounce for speakers of different languages.
You miss the point: for millions of people words "store" and "apps" are not very familiar. And in their localized phone UI, "store" would look as out of context as any other foreign word.
Named after the guy who discovered the body part, who was of course working at the University of Padova.
Speaking of which, 'ovi' in this corner of Italy means 'eggs' (like chicken eggs) quite literally. In Italian, egg is 'uovo'. My wife had a good laugh when she saw the 'ovi store'.
