Nokia’s fab new media and content store, “Ovi” (The Door in Finnish) has been open for a while so I decided I would check out the UK store and see how things were going. There has been tons of press and attention focused on Nokia emergence as a media company. Unfortunately, you can’t use or even see their service unless you are on a PC and are running the Microsoft IE browser. Hmmm. Do they assume every person who has a Mac as an iPhone? I don’t, I prefer Nokia’s because they are great devices.
So I tried the site on my browser on my AT&T 3G Nokia 6555 (ovi.com). It was 2 clicks to get to the Music store (I was told I could be “Entertained with Music”… why didn’t I think of that…?) and when I clicked on “podcasting” I was told my 3G mass-market phone could not do such a thing. I needed an N-series phone (their multimedia phone line to non-Nokites) So why, I wondered, did you let me go to that page?
Then I tried their “radio” link and was once again told I needed a N-series phone… in 5 point type I might add… A Nokia website can’t detect my Nokia 3G phone and present appropriate type size for my browser?
Then I went to the “music store”. There I was able to download a promotional video (697k) about the Nokia Music Store (a 5 click process!) and once the file downloaded, I was told that the Nokia movie file was not supported on my Nokia phone. I wandered back to the Music Store and was told that the service was not available in my country. Okay — off to the TV & Video store… (what was I thinking?) nothing for me.
So… I gave up. having wasted 20 minutes of my action-packed life. I don’t remember in all the promotional material I have read about OVI that the service was exclusively for USD $500+ N-series phones. I do understand that gaining market share in the US market is supposed to be a priority for Nokia, it’s the one place on earth they do not dominate. But this experience is not helping. I am assuming AT&T has their fingers in Nokia’s lack of a US store. Whatever… in the US market, the consumer comes last.
Sorry, I expected more from the world’s greatest mobile phone company.
