The Finnish cell phone giant Nokia recently announced a major upgrade for its online apps store client Ovi. It will change the client to version 2.8 and should roll out next week for all Symbian^3 and S60 devices. This update promises to bring many new features to the store and is part of the campaign launched by Nokia to bring its announced store at par with some of the leading online application stores like the Apple apps store. The Ovi brand name may be set to retire but this store is here to stay.
This new release includes the much awaited auto update feature. The client will automatically check for updates for all downloaded applications and compile it into a list of notifications. According to Nokia, once a user purchases the original app, subsequent updates will be available for free. Apart from this, Nokia has also tweaked the “Top Free” and “Best Seller” lists displayed on the clients. These lists will now be phone and region specific. This means that the list will now show the top applications for your device and not all S60 Symbian 3 smartphones.
There is also some country based variation ensuring that strong a local interest in a particular app is reflected on the list. Another new feature is the related items list where users can find similar games and apps under the list “Users who downloaded this app also downloaded “. Finally, there is the localization of S60 store clients to Arabic clients for users who have Arabic as their primary language.
One of the risks of Nokia signing up to manufacture phones based on WP7 platform is that the firm may lose its identity. So they are keen on keeping platforms like the Ovi Store going. Though this update brings nothing new to the market, it’s still a major improvement for Ovi.
