The smartphones will not provide access to Google Play Store

Mar 14, 2014 03:01 GMT  ·  By

It started as a rumor, but as we got closer to release, it became clearer that Nokia did not plan to allow its fans to access Google’s Play Store even if it launched an Android smartphone.

The fact that Nokia X would be embedded with a forked version of Android that would not include Google Play application was well known before the Finnish company even announced its X family of smartphones.

It turned out that these rumors were true and Nokia announced that the X, X+ and XL would come preloaded with its own dedicated applications store.

Simply dubbed Nokia Store, the ecosystem would provide Nokia X users with some of the most popular Android applications already available on Google Play store.

Obviously, not all Android apps in the Google Play Store will show up in Nokia Store as well, which is why the Finnish company will provide users with access to various third-party stores, such as Yandex Store, Aptoide, 1Mobile Market, Mobango and SlideME Market.

Again, Nokia does not offer Google Play Store as a third-party choice for those who did not find what they were looking for in the Nokia Store.

According to a blog post recently published by Nokia, “every app submitted to the Nokia Store is vetted and quality-tested to make sure it delivers on promise and without repercussion.” The company has also confirmed that Nokia Store provides extensive carrier-billing.

Nokia also states that aside from the already preloaded Nokia MixRadio, HERE Maps and Skype, the X family users will be provided with a dedicated applications store right on the homescreen.

Nokia Store
Nokia Store
The shopping bag icon tagged Nokia Store is the shortcut you are looking for. As soon as you click on it, you will be presented with a carousel of five applications, while the rest of the tabs are listed below.

Nokia Store comes with several tabs such as Featured, Applications, Games, Collections and “For Starters” section. There’s also a search bar above where you can look for a particular application that you wish to download from the store.

It is also worth mentioning that the Nokia Store screen shows all the content that is being available for download, whereas a second section displays one’s download history.

Unfortunately, there are no mentions about the updating process, so there’s no telling how Nokia X users will be able to update their already installed applications. It would make sense for users to be automatically notified of an update just as it happens with Google Play, but we can’t confirm that yet.

Photo Gallery (2 Images)

Nokia X family
Nokia Store
Open gallery