Expected to launch Ovi Store 2.0

Jan 18, 2010 13:36 GMT  ·  By

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is reportedly getting ready to make a great announcement regarding Ovi as soon as Thursday is here. It seems that the leading handset vendor has already sent out invites for a press conference on January 21, where the company says it “will share some big news.” Considering the previous reports on the company's plans with Ovi, one shouldn't be surprised to learn that Nokia has finally revamped its online service.

For those who might have missed the first reports on the matter, we should mention that Nokia said at one moment, back in December 2009, that it planned on launching a new version of its applications portal called Ovi Store. “All the while there's been this new platform being built in the background, which we'll be talking about in the next couple of months and launching in the Spring with what we're calling 2.0,” said VP of Product Development for Media George Linardos at that time.

However, there are no exact details available on what Nokia plans unveiling at the Thursday event. The company revealed last year that it planned on focusing more on the online services it provided to users, and the Ovi Store was one of them. Launched only several months ago, the software portal offers content mainly for the users of Nokia devices running under Symbian, but it also includes Maemo applications since a few days ago. It is already available in a series of countries around the world, though it does not come with one important feature in a wide range of markets, namely carrier billing.

According to Mobile Entertainment, along with a new interface of the Ovi Store, Nokia is also expected to announce the introduction of new APIs for developers, including in-app billing and push notifications, so as to provide features that are already available on other app stores. However, these are only speculations at the moment, and the exact details will only arrive on Thursday, so keep an eye on this space to learn what the Ovi announcement is all about.