Using the Ovi Store with the Nokia N97
The Nokia N97 is an impressive phone thanks to its almost portly stature, its large touch screen and its powerful feature set. However, if a phone wants to compete in today’s cluttered smartphone market it needs to stand out and that can be incredibly difficult. Other manufacturers have done this by focusing on a single element and tightening or inflating it to breaking point. Nokia has taken its usual route of stuffing in as much technology as it can lay its hands on, which has worked well in the past with other N series handsets. However, it seems that in order to emulate the success of the iPhone, manufacturers are now resorting to emulating the iPhone’s most popular feature; the App Store.
The N97 therefore, as with a growing number of other Nokia handsets, has access to the Ovi Store. Like the App Store this is essentially an online marketplace that is accessible from the N97 and holds a wide array of software applications designed specifically for use with Nokia handsets. Whether the Nokia N97 Ovi Store access is actually its saving grace or a poor imitation of a much better rival system is something that needs further examination.
The Nokia N97 Ovi Store can be accessed directly from the N97 via a menu shortcut or widget if you so choose. Alternatively you can visit the Ovi Store from any PC or Mac with an internet connection if you want to perform some in-depth big screen browsing or give your N97’s data connection a bit of a rest. You can then browse through various downloads, some of which are free of charge whilst others require a small payment and then transfer them directly to the N97 for a quick install.
The Nokia N97 Ovi Store contains an often baffling array of applications. Many of the most popular apps have been rated by other users using a star system which only goes up to 3 and some apps are even accompanied by written reviews. Annoyingly the apps which do not have any star rating at all are usually advertised as such because no one has actually rated them, rather than having received multiple poor ratings. This is a small issue to iron out, but then the Nokia N97 Ovi Store seems to be full of little issues which could become grating over time.
There are plenty of games and casual applications on the Ovi store. From big-name titles produced by big-name companies to independent games with a clearly minimal development budget, every taste should be accounted for. You can sort the apps based on whether they are considered to be practical or frivolous, but it is often difficult to make this distinction. For example, there is an app that claims to predict the sexual orientation of anyone and this clearly ridiculous, if perhaps amusing, application is listed alongside useful apps that can protect you from online fraud when shopping on the N97.
The main purpose of the Ovi Store is to offer Nokia owners the chance to enhance their phone with applications of their choice. But for the time being the Ovi Store is a slightly flawed shopping platform. This may be hard to resolve because the iPhone’s App Store has only been a success because of the sheer degree of third party content it contains. There are now estimated to be over 100,000 apps to download for the iPhone, where as the number available for the N97 is far more modest. Obviously it should be about quality rather than quantity, but when ‘Fart Attack –Lite’ is one of the first Ovi Store items to greet you upon visiting the site, it is clear that Nokia needs to improve in both areas.
