Desktop Download! Hits The Web
A while back, the Nokia Beta Labs launched a desktop Download! client, which was only available for Windows based computers. After apparently quite a bit of feedback, the team went back to the drawing board and have re-launched - sans the Beta Labs - a web-based Download! client, available through any web browser (not just Internet Explorer - kudos to the Download! team).
To start using the new web-based Download! client, you choose your country….wait. Strike one - The U.S. isn’t listed. Cool, apparently we don’t exist to Nokia. Good thing they’re putting more emphasis on their presence in the U.S. Continuing on, you then choose your phone and provider, and have a selection of applications - free and commercial - which you can then download to your PC and install through PC Suite.
It’s a decent solution, but still very fragmented and unintuitive. When you get to the download, there’s only an option to download to your PC. What about a mobile barcode? Why not a ’send download link’ button to send an SMS? Strike two.
Another glaring issue is the pricing. If you just read the site, you’d think everything was free - every app has a price of ‘Try for free.’ Cool, but THEN how much is it, after this generous free trial? Strike three, we need to know these things, I think (and a few commenters on the Beta Labs agree).
In any case, I’m a big fan of the web-based approach, and the ability to use whatever browser *I* want to. However, the missing U.S. support is a big fat downer, and the pricing practices suck, and are rather misleading. What do you think? Is this more convenient than simply shopping on your phone directly?
Strike four : India isnt listed either!
As you have mentioned about the availability is great through a web browser.
However as the inbuilt flash support for Nokia phones are not the best, this is more or less useless to use on the S60 webbrowser.
One thing I’m not sure of is why they need to know the operator as one can start to download the applications after just finishing step 1 - 2, moreover just click directly on the ‘Top downloads’ or ‘New downloads’.
The Gridview on the page is very uninformative as there is a total lack of information regarding each app and with lots of empty spaces. (Good thing is that List view is default on the page)
When it comes to pricing I totally agree as there is no mentioning about what the price is.
This appeared also on the Download! in my N82 whereas some applications was with description 0,- in price but only a trial.
All in all it is not very ‘mobile friendly’ as you pointed out.
The Download! in the N-series phones are a little better when it comes to downloading applications directly to your phone, but the issue of pricing is still there (at least for N82).
As I’ve purchased all my phone applications via a pc I don’t really find things more or less inconvenient on either side.
However it is worth mentioning the Quick Manager system that’s integrated into QuickOffice products. This is one of the best solutions I’ve seen when it comes to purchase things via a mobile phone. Mobile Office also provides decent mobile / wap site with good information and let’s us not forget about N-gage 2.0
The download.nokia.com website is on their way, but take away the flash elements and put up some decent pricing info and it will be good.
Currently as it is, it don’t look like a finished website.
What happened to the old download store? That was way much better. (even if it didn’t have the option to select country, operator and phone)
It doesn’t need to be browsable on your phone, there’s already a Download! client ON your phone. The same content is available.
Where is the Mac support?
@Jeb - It’s webbased, and I was able to use it fine with Firefox, which means it should work fine on Mac or Linux even.
what bothers me about this client is that nokia doesnt treat every region the same. north america (i am in toronto) has access to less software then europe does. i have also found different software available for different phones that i own. even if they dont want to give us a free app, it would be nice if they at least allowed us a trial so we can see if we want to buy it.
my n95 had at least 20 apps show as available but when i flipped my sim to my n82 it would show 5 or 6. my n95 showed worldmate as available but my n82 does not. i think they should release software to all of the users of their phones.
Hi gals & guys! Cheers for the post and all the comments!
The Download Store is just a pilot - and whenever they do pilots, they launch on just a few locations. The store has been an enormous success and I can only guess that they’ll roll this out globally. Let’s cross our fingers!