Greener Desktop

Nokia has finally started rolling out the Nokia store to selected countries. At this point I believe just Ireland and Australia but within a few days most countries should be online. For those who are not in the know it is basically Nokia’s answer to the iPhone app store and will be accessible from both your mobile phone (as an application itself) and the Ovi Store website.

Before I start talking about the application I’m sure you’ll want to know how to install it yourself or at least check to see if it’s available for you. So without delay, here’s the instructions:

1. Locate the download functionality on your phone. For recent E and N series there should be a download icon in the main menu. You may have to look under extras
2. Download should tell you it needs to update the catalogue. If it doesn’t choose options and refresh list.
3. Select Ovi Store and wait while it downloads and installs the app
4. The installer will ask you to reboot the phone
5. Once you’ve rebooted go to the home menu and navigate to where apps are normally installed for you (installations/extras). You will find a brand new icon for the Ovi Store. Fire it up and enjoy.

The first thing you have to do before you can enjoy any of the Ovi Store content is to login. Yes, even free content requires a login. If you haven’t got an account don’t worry. You can create one on the spot without a computer.

After you’ve gone through the sign in/sign up process you are presented with the following screen. Notice how all the apps recommended to you initially are free. They want to hook you in. They’ve done a great job here as there’s almost 20 apps and videos you can download without charge to get a feel for the service.

Scrolling left and right takes you across the major tabs in the Ovi Store where content is broken down into Apps, Recommended, Games, Audio & Video (media not apps), Personalisation (wallpapers and ring tones) and My Stuff. At first navigation seems daunting – pages and pages of apps, music and other stuff.  Go through to the options menu and you’ll find that most content is categorised and all content can be filtered by cost, popularity and by recency.

The application prices are surprisingly reasonable. I was expecting developers to be holding out for $20 + as they did in the old Nokia store. Games seem to start at AUD $6.60 and do go up to AUD $12.00 where you do have to think twice before buying. Videos on the other hand are either free or come at a nominal price. There’s a wide range available as well with everything from movie trailers, to travel guides to stand up comedy routines. Pricing is definitely not the same as the iPhone app store where programs start at USD 0.99 but the quality on Ovi Store seems vastly superior. I haven’t seen any fart apps so far. I know I’m prepared to pay more for quality software that does more than play funny sounds or allow you to shake a baby to death.

Installing apps is, surprisingly, even more pleasant than the already quite agreeable standard way of installing apps. It’s completely seamless – once you’ve selected an App to install (and possibly paid for it) you’ll see a progress bar indicating the download progress and then another giving you the install progress. When the application is ready to be run you’ll be prompted to start it. If like me you’re so keen on installing as much free software and media as you can it will go into your installed applications folder on the phone for later use.

Once you’ve installed an app you can write a full review, right there on the phone.

So far the experience is good and I enjoyed the new found freedom I have. The old application download service was horrible. However, I will reserve my full judgement of the service for when they launch the full PC website and to see how that integrates using Nokia Suite with the phone itself. As you can see from the screen shots there’s not much chance I’ll be doing all my app purchasing on the E71s 320×240 screen.

The ultimate question is – “Will this bring Nokia enough hype and backing to take on some of Apple’s slice of new smart phone uptake?”

Today the Australian government announced their intention to go ahead with building a national broadband infrastructure, themselves. Apparently none of the tenders were up to scratch. Including those from the big players like Optus. Telstra was dumped from the process a long time ago.

Theoretically this is a great move. I have long said that the government made a big mistake when they privatised Telstra. Effectively creating a private sector monopoly on telecommunications. The difference between a public and private sector monopoly is greed. Corporations by their very nature are greedy. When Telstra was privatised it should have been split up into retail and infrastructure. With infrastructure not only servicing Telstra retail but other players. Infrastructure would have remained a public service.

So what the government has just announced is effectively what should have been done 11 years ago. Hooray right? Now for the bad news.

The government has effectively cut out the middle man when it comes to implementing their Internet filter. Since they will control the wire they will also control the Internet. This is great for the government since cooperation from ISPs has been a problem all along. The ISPs have known all along that the filter stinks. It’s bad news for them and it’s bad news for their users. Telstra the largest ISP in the country refused to participate in any trials and during the initial round of trials a lot of the ISPs that did participate dropped out.

Part of the motivation for building this network seems to come from frustration over what the private sector can deliver but the conspiracy theory in me says that a lot of it has to do with pushing it’s paternalistic filtering agenda through. With one hand the government giveth and with the other it taketh away, our rights and liberties, anyway.

A close friend today was discussing mobile internet with me. I forced him to when I started ranting today about the fact that Vodafone want to charge you $10 a month extra for 100mb of Internet access on your mobile whilst I can get a whole gigabyte for $19 a month if I use one of those USB sticks. Don’t use Vodafone, they’re just one example of why we’ll be stuck in the dark ages for a long long time. Anyway I digress.

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